The Deadly Assassin
by Mayet
Summary: The Doctor has received a psychic premonition suggesting that the President's life is in danger. He rushes back to Gallifrey to safe her... Wait, what? AU, hints of Fourth Doctor/Time Lady!Rose Rating to be safe.


**The Deadly Assassin**

 **Summary:** The Doctor has received a psychic premonition suggesting that the President's life is in danger. He rushes back to Gallifrey to safe her... Wait, what? AU, hints of Fourth Doctor/Time Lady!Rose

 **Disclaimer.** I don't own Doctor Who, sadly.

 **A/N:** Now, I know that not everyone appreciates mixing Classic Who with New Who,, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone since I saw the episode, months back. Not everyone likes Rose, that's fine, there's companions I don't like either. If that's the case for you, this fanfic won't be your cup of tea. Fan or not, reviews sometimes can get out of hand, so if you read and review, please be respectful to the characters and actors involved as well as your fellow readers and the author. Thank you.

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Having stowed away on his own ship, the Doctor waited for the Tardis to be transducted into the capitol. A quick look around revealed that he was in the changing area for the Time Lords and Ladies who would attend the president's official resignation in the Panopticon. He considered heading straight for the Panopticon to try and find the vantage point from which the assassin would shoot the Lady President as he had seen it in his unusual premonition. He still had some time before the ceremony would begin, however, and he couldn't be sure that the Castellan had actually passed on the note and informed her Ladyship of the risk. In fact, given their overall handling of his appearance, he suspected they were rather focusing on him, both as an intruder in general and as a potential suspect for the assassination attempt he had warned them about. Passing a hand pensively over his face, he wondered if he could reach the Lady President in time to warn her directly. So close to the beginning of the announcement, she would be in one of the private changing rooms adjacent to the Panopticon to get ready. Her attendees would leave her once they'd finished helping her into the uncomfortable ceremonial robes and headdress and there would be a small window of opportunity between then and the appearance of her advisers to go over the last details.

The Doctor hummed to himself, realizing it would be risky, but he had to warn her. Perhaps she could be persuaded to postpone the announcement until the assassin had been found. Of course, if he was found in the President's changing room, it would only be seen as further proof in addition to his own letter that he was in fact the one who planned to murder her. Well, either way he decided he had to try. Hastily throwing on the Gold Usher's robe, he made his way out the back of the changing room and through the circular hallway that surrounded the Panopticon, he stopped when he was met with the first corner that broke the circular pattern. Peeking around it, the Doctor could the red-and-white uniformed Chancellary Guards positioned outside the presidential rooms, just as the door opened to let a group of maidservants walk backward out of the room. The Doctor wanted to scoff at the pomp and arrogance of the procedure; no turning one's back to the president indeed. He'd certainly march out of there like a normal personal and without all the bows. He vaguely registered a female voice protesting all the formality, but the door closed on it immediately. Intrigue settled in him briefly, but he shook himself free to concentrate on his goal. Looking down at himself, he adjusted his golden robes and strode imposingly around the corner. When a hint of gold entered their line of sight, the Chancellary Guards instinctively stood a little straighter. He advanced into the rooms before they could question whether or not his face matched the robes.

Once inside, he chuckled. Typical Time Lords, the room looked like a broom closet from the outside, but on the inside it was quite the luxurious walk-in closet. He could even make out a sitting area to his right in the dimly lit room, a cup of tea half drunk and a kettle being kept warm by the flame of a small candle indicating it had been recently used. Next to the tea set he found a vase with soft golden flowers – the very ones his granddaughter was named for. They were so hard to come by and his little girl had been so precious to him. Oh, his dear Susan, he wondered sometimes if she was happy after all...

"You are not the Gold Usher," a soft but firm feminine voice said. The Doctor turned abruptly to his left, expecting an old matron in an imposing headdress. He hadn't really gotten a good look at the Lady President in his premonition. Between the distance, the robes and the headdress obscuring her face, he had only just been able to make out that she was female. Now up close she looked nothing like he imagined. She was young, for starters. Appearances could be deceiving, particularly with his people's natural metamorphoses, but he could see her eyes – they were young, younger than his own certainly, and idealistic. How she hadn't been eaten up alive by her council of ancient, dusty senators was beyond him. How had she even been elected in the first place? Her face was odd, it appeared both softly rounded and slightly angular at the same time, though that could be a trick of the light. Her eyes were darker in the dim room, pupils blown by the lack of light, but he could just make out the whiskey color on the margins. The crisp white robes set of the heavy gold chain she wore as ornament and her intricately styled hair of the same color. Hair, he now realized, styled but not yet confined by a headdress. It was long, soft and golden as the flowers on the table behind him. She had cocked her head to the side inquisitively, studying him, and now her arms were coming up to cross in front of her chest. "Well?"

The Doctor shook himself out of his reverie and offered her a wide grin in hopes of alleviating some of the tension. He shrugged out of the robe and placed it over her chair, then proceeded to give a mock little bow.

"Your Ladyship is right, of course. I'm the Doctor," he introduced himself, grin never leaving his face even as all she did was raise an eyebrow.

"Am I in need of a physician?"

"Soon you might be." Turning serious, he stepped forward into her personal space. She did not flinch or back away, but followed his movements warily with her eyes. So close to her he stood almost a head taller, and they both had to contort their necks to look each other in the eyes. He was about to speak again when she held up a hand, moving away briefly. He watched her step into heeled shoes and then return to her spot in front of him, now almost eye-level. This time she shared his grin. "Listen, there's not much time. I've come here to warn you. Someone is plotting to kill you today at the resignation ceremony. They will be ready for you when you step out into the Panopticon. From your position on the dais, you will be an easy mark. I have tried to warn the Castellan of this matter, but I don't think he took my warning seriously enough."

At the mention of an assassin she did back slowly away from him. He guessed he couldn't fault her for making the same assumption as the Castellan but it was becoming increasingly irritating. He put his hands up, turning them one way and the other, he even lifted the sleeves of his shirt to show her he had nothing hidden in there. "Oh," he said sarcastically, "Maybe I should mention that I didn't come here to kill you?!..." Then he called himself to order and went on in a softer tone. "I assure you, you have nothing to fear from me. I merely want to warn you."

She still eyed him warily but at least she stopped backing away. Though she was only a few paces from the racks of clothes, so there wouldn't have been much more space to back away to. She didn't call the guards either, which he counted as a win. "What makes you think that there is any danger in the Panopticon? Why disguise yourself as Gold Usher to come warn me?"

He rubbed his face tiredly. He had left a letter to avoid this question, because now she surely won't believe him.

"Doctor?", she said his name softly, carefully.

"You won't believe me if I told you."

"Only one way to find out," she shot back and he had to admire her spirit. Her fire, passion and idealism danced in her eyes as they burned into him, a testimony to her youth. He could see himself in her, a few centuries ago, but unlike him she had chosen the difficult path to stay and do something to see her ideals realized. "Look at this from my perspective: a strangely dressed man turns up in my private changing room, disguised as the Gold Usher and claims that there is someone out there who wants me dead... Wouldn't you be suspicious?"

"Shortly before arriving on Gallifrey I received a mysterious summons by the Time Lords." They both frowned and he suspected she had neither given nor approved any order to call back a known renegade. "After I dropped my current traveling companion off back home and proceeded to set the coordinates for Gallifrey, I... I received a strong psychic impression, a premonition in which you died in the Panopticon. I had to come and prevent it."

She looked somewhere between incredulous and suspicious, but she had yet to interrupt him. Tiredly, he sank onto a chair before continuing.

"As for the disguise, well, I have been banished from Gallifrey repeatedly. I am officially considered a renegade and after my unauthorized and, as I now suspect, unrequested arrival in the capitol's security area, I had to avoid the Chancellary Guard if I wanted to have any hope of preventing this disaster."

After a moment of silence, he asked if she believed him.

"I believe that you believe it," she answered carefully and the Doctor felt bile rising within him. He had no time for games or mind tricks. Scoffing at her, he stood, threw on the golden robes again and made for the door. He had done what he had come for; he had warned her. If she didn't see fit to listen to him, that was not his problem. He would keep looking for the assassin of course, but what frail hopes had been raised in the face of her youth, hopes of shared idealism and acceptance, were quite thoroughly dashed again and all he could think was that it was probably better that way. A hand on his arm stopped him. He looked down at it first as if puzzling where it came from when there was only one other person in this room. Her hands were slim, delicate, deceptive. Their strength held him back as much as the surprise that she had grasped his arm in the first place. He then looked up into her face again and found an apology in her eyes. And fear. Her fingers curled further into the robes. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I believe that you would not have risked coming here without good reason. But why would someone want to kill me now when I am about to resign?"

As apologies went, that was a convoluted attempt. Nonetheless, she brought up an important point. Why would someone want to kill a fading president?

"I don't know. Any bills that would still be passed until your resignation became effective?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but there was a knock on the door and Borusa's voice trickled through. They both were shocked into stillness, until the Lady President used her grip on his robes to pull him behind her, calling to Borusa to wait another moment. She shuffled for her headdress, indicating him with a gesture to disappear while she pulled it on. The Doctor twirled once to see where he might hide. There was no real space, except perhaps behind the screen folded in the corner. He made a beeline to unfold it and ducked behind it. The Lady President – whose name he had yet to inquire about, how _rude_ of him – cast one last glance over her shoulder to make sure he was properly hidden. He gave her a grin around the edge of the screen at her uncertain look. She didn't look reassured. The Doctor just hoped she would keep his hiding place secret.

"Come in," the Lady President called distractedly. The door opened to reveal Lord Borusa in vast purple robes with Chancellor Goth following closely behind. The president automatically stood up straighter, head up and he could imagine her face taking the same cool detachment that he saw on Borusa's and Goth'. Now the Time Lady spread an aura of grace and authority that surely served her well during her presidency. "What is it?"

"It has taken so long to prepare... The ceremony is about to begin."

"I have been preparing myself. After all, such an important event requires precision and firmness of conviction, Lord Borusa. Surely, you do not suggest rushing unprepared into the Panopticon? What a fool the President would make of herself."

Borusa inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

"Anything else?"

"No, your Ladyship," he said, turning for the door. As it was closing on him, the Doctor was coming out of his hiding place when Borusa turned around once more.

"Yes, actually." This was Goth, approaching the Time Lady with quick, decisive strikes. "There is one other thing, my Lady... There was a report from the Castellan about an intruder into the capitol."

"A-an intruder?", she questioned, stumbling slightly over the words. The Doctor gritted his teeth. The chancellor and his former teacher were no fools. They would no doubt pick up on that slight uncertainty. The renegade Time Lord inched himself up to see through a decorative loop at the top of the screen. Now the president's back was too straight, too tense and there was the slightest tremble in her frame. Was there any bad blood between the president and her chancellor? She turned suddenly, her back to her advisers, and looking at the screen caught the Doctor's eye. He could see how her resolve returned. The mask of passivity back in place, she rounded on Goth and Borusa again. "What intruder? What does he want?!"

"He, you Ladyship?"

The president didn't miss a beat this time. "I assumed... Blastedly few women in the Panopticon today; a Time Lady would stand out. Well?"

"It is a renegade Time Lord who goes by The Doctor."

"The Doctor?"

"Yes, a rather sanctimonious name, and not truly in alignment with his achievements...," Borusa cut in to explain. As a reaction to something on her face, he elaborated. "He was one of my students at the academy. Mediocre student at best. He would rather fill his days with flights of fancy than prepare for his classes. In the end, I suppose it didn't matter," Borusa reminisced. "He left Gallifrey, he is a renegade now."

"And has returned to his home. Why do you think that is?"

Borusa looked uncomfortable.

"I admit that I do not know. He left a letter warning of an impending attack on your life, Lady President."

"Well, what's being done about it?"

"It is merely a distraction to draw attention away from himself, my Lady," Goth interrupted her conversation with Borusa emphatically. "He clearly means to obstruct our manhunt for him by sending us on some fanciful investigation of another, non-existent assassin. I won't allow it!"

"Then you believe he has come here himself to kill me."

"Why else would he return?"

"What motive could he possibly have? Quite aside from the fact that I am resigning today, I cannot recall ever having met or even heard about this Doctor before today!"

"He is a renegade, a criminal! What reason does he need?!.. Even so, perhaps someone hired him. We will find out once he is apprehended. The Castellan is working on it as we speak."

"Nonetheless, the Lady President's life is in danger," Borusa interjected tersely. "Perhaps it would be opportune to postpone today's ceremonies until the danger has passed..."

Goth snapped his head toward the adviser, glaring daggers at him.

"The Council and the President must not shrink from this threat! Such a display of weakness; confidence would surely be lost in our leadership! I have doubled the guard; her ladyship will be well protected." In his obvious agitation, Goth entered the room more fully as he seemed to muse over the answer. He stepped across the changing room in a wide arch, making the Doctor crouch low behind the screen. In crouching down he accidentally brushed against the screen and shifted the panel on the right. Thankfully, the adviser was too focused on the President to take note, but the panel swung out, leaving him sitting directly and visibly behind the Chancellor. He dared not make a move, not while the room was still quiet, though he could see the president fight to keep the panic off her face when she caught sight of him past her adviser. Thankfully, Goth's back was still to him, but around his ropes he briefly caught his old teacher's gaze. His hearts stopped for a few beats as he awaited the call for the guards and his arrest. Surprisingly, Borusa cast a quick glance at the Lady President and, though she was not looking at him, but surreptitiously trying to keep her attention on Goth as he ranted, must have deduced something from her face because he intervened with the chancellor's rant.

Borusa faced him head on, providing the Doctor with some cover noise to scramble quietly behind the rest of the fan. "We are not speaking of canceling a parade because of inclement weather, Chancellor Goth! You are playing with the president's life here!"

Before Goth could unleash a nasty retort, the Lady President raised both her hands and bit out a viscous "Enough!". Then, she turned away once more, pacing for a few moment and throwing a glance at the Doctor as she stopped.

"Do you think him capable of such an act, Lord Borusa? After all, it is murder and treason we are talking about." She looked right at him. Thankfully, Goth seemed oblivious as Borusa was making some excuse about the volatile character of the Doctor and the vagaries of regeneration.

"Borusa, your personal opinion, please," the president insisted. A little perplexed at her demand, Borusa shifted from one foot to the other, glancing at the screen in a way that perplexed Goth and risked making him investigate Borusa's sudden interest in the piece of furniture. For a moment, she saw indecision on his face, and Borusa's silence unsettled her.

"...Well, if you insist... I suppose, no... I do not think he would have the resolve to go through with such a plan. Stubborn, he was, but soft."

"That is hardly- He has been a renegade for centuries, how-" Goth embarked on another tirade, but the president held up her hand to silence him at the same time as she spoke over him.

"Thank you, Borusa. Then see to it that the Castellan does not waste all resources on finding the Doctor when there could be another threat. I want the Chancellary Guard to search the Panopticon for this would-be assassin."

"But, my Lady, the Time Lords of Gallifrey are already present and awaiting your entrance. To subject them to a search-"

"-then tell them to search discretely, but make the room secure."

"It will be that Doctor, you will see, my Lady!"

"Perhaps it will, but tell the Castellan to keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior nonetheless. Now leave me; I will join you shortly for the announcement."

Not even one set of heartbeats after the two men left, the Lady President hastened to the other side of the screen where the Doctor still sat slumped against the wall. His wild curls effectively hid his face from her as she sat down on the ground beside him. He looked up at her and they shared a brief grin, grateful to have made it out of that potential disaster without any repercussions – as of yet. The Doctor's hand came up to stroke through his unruly mob of hair in a pensive gesture, making it stick up even more unevenly. The Time Lady couldn't help herself; she giggled in childlike joy. The Doctor's answering chuckle was dark and soft.

"Thank you," he finally said. "For keeping my confidence. You could have handed me over to Goth."

"I think we both ought to thank Lord Borusa."

"Hmm, he was probably only protecting your office from scandal on your day of resignation. I doubt it had anything to do with sympathy for me."

"His opinion of your academic achievements was rather harsh, but he seems to think that you're a good man, at least not a murderer... Speaking of which, I should face mine."

The Doctor stared at her.

"Are you insane..." At her non-plussed look, he added almost as an afterthought. "My Lady."

"Goth has a point about not shrinking from threats. This is hardly the first I've received during my tenure. This is the day and I will resign with dignity."

The Doctor jumped to his feet angrily, looking down at her with all the condescension he could muster. He could feel his face becoming red with anger and his eyes blazing as he glared at her. Her whiskey-colored eyes looked back at him evenly.

"Foolish girl! Is dignity worth your life?!"

At his words she squared her jaw. Rising from the ground with the same air of grace and authority with which she held herself at the entry of Borusa and Goth, and with a cold detachment he had never seen on her face even when he had only just broken into her changing rooms, she regarded him as one might a powerless enemy; not dangerous enough to warrant hatred or caution, but utterly indifferent to them. If this is how she faced the council, he was not surprised that she had been elected President at such a young age, and her eyes betrayed her youth even as she gazed at him so coolly.

"You have warned me of the imminent danger and I shall take every precaution to avoid its realization, but if I allow news of an assassin to hinder my actions, to bring my government to a standstill – and for the next few hours, days even until the next president is elected, it is still my government – then the assassin has already won without ever laying a hand on me. I will not leave my people and Gallifrey in a state of political unrest because my life has been threatened, again."

The Doctor cocked his head to the side. She had said that it had not been the first threat she had faced, but her passionless voice made him wonder exactly how many there had been. Before he could ponder the matter in depth, her hand grabbed his arm with surprising strength and pulled him towards a nook to the side of the Panopticon entrance of her fitting rooms. She let him go to brush her hand over the wall to his right in an intricate pattern. The symbol she had drawn briefly glowed as it activated, then the door slid to the side to unveil a brief secret passage.

"It leads to the changing rooms for the other Time Lords allocated around the Panopticon. No one else knows about it, so it should take you safely out of my rooms and, hopefully, you can then make your way back to your ship without being caught."

She wouldn't look at him as she spoke, but rather faced the dim passageway through which he was to escape. She was expecting him to leave now that he had delivered his message. Or maybe now that he had managed to insult her so thoroughly. At least, he supposed, she hadn't called the guards now either, but he was far from done on Gallifrey. He had come to prevent her assassination and if she insisted on placing herself in danger, than he hadn't resolved anything by warning her. He needed to make his way into the Panopticon and find the shooter before it was too late. Without a greeting, he left her standing in her rooms and hurried down the dark passage. It grew even darker as the secret door closed behind him, but it was a short trip before another secret door slid open and he appeared behind what seemed to be rack of robes and a curtain. He quickly grabbed a Prydonian one to replace his Gold Usher robes, before he noticed two Time Lords talking behind the curtain.

"Now where have my robes gone to?! One would think they could keep order in here!", one voice complained. "Especially on such an important day. What, do they expect me to face the Lady President in my house wear."

"This president might not care so much. You've seen what she's done with the CIA. Very unconventional. The council wasn't at all happy when she pushed her reform through, I tell you. Rumor has it that they were even prepared to take more drastic actions."

"Yes, I hear even Lord Borusa, one of her strongest supporters, urged her to resign afterward, but she apparently refused until recently."

"I am surprised it has taken even this long. No doubt the council finally had enough and threatened to have a vote of no confidence if she didn't resign willingly... Still, a pity that it's so soon. I can't keep up with these youngsters. Time was, presidents stayed in office at least a few centuries."

"Yes, yes... now where are those damn robes!"

Having listened carefully, the Doctor had an idea. He poked his head through the curtain, offering to help the Time Lord into his robes, quickly discarding the Gold Usher's outfit he had previously nicked and which the Castellan was undoubtedly looking for. Before the two Time Lords could realize the switch, he threw on the Prydonian robes he had found and made his way to the Panopticon. He had to find that assassin before anything could happen, but he couldn't risk his discovery. He doubted even the Lady President's good will, if he'd still had it, could protect him from Chancellor Goth if he was found within the walls of the Panopticon. He came out into the room just as the President did. Damn it, he had lost valuable time warning her, which had proven wholly ineffective. He had no time to identify the killer as she descended the short ramp to the podium. In addition to her pearl-white dress, she now wore a heavy gold sash around her neck and body and carried some kind of short staff that he would think looked too archaic for pompous Time Lords. Must be some sacred relic, he concluded. Quickly darting his eyes around, he tried to catch a glimpse of the assassin perhaps preparing himself, but all he saw was an impressive amount of guards do the same while the congregated Time Lords shifted uneasily under the scrutiny and mumbled their malcontent at it. The Doctor closed his eyes, trying to remember his premonition. In it he had been in the position of the killer. He remembered looking down upon the congregation. He must have been on the gallery. Surreptitiously raising his gaze he scanned the gallery as he slowly turned away from the crowd. He couldn't see anything suspicious. The gallery was empty, except for the visual equipment of his old schoolmate Runcible – that was it! No one would suspect a reflection from the gallery, assuming it to be Runcible's equipment rather than a weapon. There, a glint! The Doctor automatically took a step toward the gallery, but if the killer was already handling the laser gun there was no way he could get to him in time. Quickly he spun around and made his way to the presidential podium instead, shoving and elbowing several surprised and irritated Time Lords out of the way.

"Out of my way! They will kill her!", he called out as he rushed the podium, which was left surprisingly free of all the guards otherwise stationed around the Panopticon. He scrambled to get on top of it and rushed the Lady President to pull her away and down onto the ground to avoid the shot, but instead of colliding with her petite body when he expected to, he stumbled right through her and up the ramp he had seen her descend. He managed to catch himself somewhat, though still stumbling backwards, as he turned around to see the holographic projection flicker in the air and the last thing he had time to think was how clever it was, her idea of a precaution since it was impossible to kill a hologram, before he finally collided with something, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Shaking his head clear of dizziness he looked down into the Lady President's bemused face, her headdress knocked clear off and her golden tresses spread on the ground like a halo. He saw her raise her hand to reveal a small holographic projector. They shared another grin. Well, it seemed he had been wrong. Dignity was not worth her life, but it was worth some cloak and dagger. Then he realized that she had deliberately led him astray, allowing him to think she would face the Panopticon in person. A double precaution – against the assassin and, no doubt, in case he had in fact come here to kill her. He felt an unpleasant sting at the knowledge that she had not fully trusted him even after he had come to warn her, but he stamped down on it viciously. He could hardly blame her. If she had, as he suspected, had so many death threats that she kept a holographic projector in her dress robes, her shrewdness must have saved her life often enough to fall back on it at even the slightest uncertainty. After all, she had truly never met him before today.

"Clever girl," he breathed, admiring her ingenuity.

"Clever now, eh? Wasn't I foolish not ten minutes ago?" The grin still on her face took the bite out of her words, and then her eyes softened from bemusement to something he couldn't quite name. "You could have been shot. You might have died to save my life... No, my hologram! I'm sorry, I should have told you."

"A shot!", they heard a should from the Panopticon. "Quick! Secure the president!"

"Perhaps you should get off me," she suggested, but before he could follow suit, the Doctor felt strong hands grab his arms as he was lifted forcefully off the Lady President.

"My Lady, are you alright?", the Castellan asked as he rushed into the room. With a side glance at the Doctor, he ordered to take him away to the dungeons.

"Whatever for, Castellan?", the president asked.

"To await trial, of course, for the attempted murder," Goth answered without missing a beat. "He should stand trial immediately. I will convene a tribunal to judge-"

"Since when do Time Lords have tribunals without giving the accused time to mount a defense first?", the Doctor asked.

"You, be quiet! I will not have you defile our laws and customs further!"

"Funny you should speak of our laws, Chancellor Goth, when you're about to trample them," the Lady President bit back. "The Doctor tried to save my life, Goth."

"He rushed you!"

"And am I dead?"

The chancellors face went red.

"We heard a shot ring out. Luckily, he missed. He didn't have time for a second attempt."

"Then where is the gun?", the Doctor inquired, pulling his arms out of the grasps of the two uncertain guards. He stepped forward, stretching his arms out. "Go on then! I cannot have had the time to discard it anywhere. If it's not on me and not in the immediate vicinity, how could I have shot at her?!"

The guards looked hesitantly from Goth to the president to the Castellan.

"Well, the Doctor has a point," Borusa finally spoke. "And anyway, if he wanted to kill her, he could have done it earlier in her changing rooms before Chancellor Goth and I came in or after we left. A perfect opportunity each time."

The Doctor could feel his cheeks burn almost immediately. He risked a glance at the Lady President. She seemed to find something at her feet particularly interesting at the moment, her intricately woven hair falling forward somewhat to curtain her face, but he thought he could make out the slightest hint of red peaking through. Something in his stomach shifted at that, he noted almost angrily. While the Doctor looked skyward in exasperation and the Lady President fought a blush at being discovered after all, Goth most closely resembled a fish out of water with his gaping mouth – and that was worth the discomfort right there. The Lady President swallowed her embarrassment as well as an unflattering reply to Borusa's little revelation and instead stepped around the Doctor to face the Castellan and the Chancellary Guards directly.

"What, exactly, is everyone waiting for?! There's an assassin on the loose who just tried to kill me. FIND. HIM." Her face was smiling, but her voice was almost feral at the end, the order an angry howl that echoed off the walls of the room as if the Citadel itself barked at them. Something stirred inside the Doctor then, something primal. Fear perhaps; she rather frighteningly resembled a wolf at that moment. A beautiful, golden wolf. A lone wolf – among sheep or hunters? Perhaps a bad wolf...

The guards hurried off in a fright.

There was complete silence in the room after they had hastened to obey their orders. The president took a deep breath and turned to face the Doctor. Whatever her expression had been that had frightened the guards so much, now her face showed only calm determination to get to the bottom of this. She was obviously not the kind of president – or woman – who would stay out of this investigation. The Doctor felt a smile begin to form on his lips. It would certainly do... to learn more about this fascinating young woman.

"You mentioned a premonition. Did it by any chance reveal the location from which I was to be shot?"

"Yes, my Lady, from the gallery, probably somewhere close to the video equipment."

"Then let's go. Lord Borusa, I trust you can handle any less urgent matters with the council while I try to stay alive long enough to resign," she said, already moving toward the Panopticon without waiting for a reply. The Doctor and the Castellan both hastened to reach her to hold her back. She cast them a look. "He will hardly still be there now that he has failed."

The men exchanged a glance. Her obvious fearlessness meant that it would be their job to make sure it wouldn't get her killed.

"He will probably regroup and consider his next move, but if it's all the same, my Lady, I think another precaution won't go amiss?", the Doctor asked cautiously.

Another deep breath, turning her gaze skyward as she contemplated the necessity to compromise. Finally, she gestured with her hand for him to lead the way. They heard the Castellan exhale a sigh of relief. Grateful himself, the Doctor made to move past her through the entrance into the Panopticon. At the last moment he halted, turning back around to face her. His hand had come up to tap his lower lip thoughtfully before he extended it toward the Time Lady.

"I never did learn your name, my Lady."

"You never asked," she replied amusedly. "But, I suppose, having so valiantly come to my rescue, you might as well address me less formally."

"It would be a privilege."

The Castellan rolled his eyes. It was a good thing Borusa and Goth had left through the back door already. He shuddered to think what would happen if those two were stuck like him watching the kids flirt.

"I am Arkytior of the House of Oakdown."

They both noticed the way the Doctor tensed at the Time Lady's response, but while the Castellan was mildly intrigued, the President squared her jaw at his reaction. Whatever closeness they had shared not a moment earlier was obviously shaken by the statement. The look the young woman was sending the renegade Time Lord was one of defiance, of challenge. The Doctor in response sobered quickly from his shock, but there remained a distance in his eyes.

"And my name is Spandrell, in case you were wondering, Doctor," the Castellan interjected, trying to get them both back on track. The Doctor startled, hummed quietly and gave him a nod.

"Yes, well..." But he turned around and left the way he came tumbling through without continuing. Spandrell thought to follow him quickly, but decided that if the Lady President intended to come with them it might be better to keep her safely between them. Whatever had such an effect on the Doctor, he doubted the man had gone to such trouble to save the Time Lady only to let her perish over some silly squabble. Therefore, he nodded to the young woman to follow the Doctor once he had the all-clear sign from him. As they joined the renegade outside, one of Spandrell's men came running towards them, a laser gun in his hand that was certainly not standard issue for the Chancellary Guards. Unsure who to present with that weapon – the savior, the Castellan or the President – the guard stopped a few feet away so as not to offend anyone and kept his address desperately neutral.

"This was found at the indicated spot in the gallery, near the video equipment."

Without hesitation the Doctor grabbed it right out of the man's hand. Out of instinct, with the Lady President so close, the guard made a move for his own weapon, but the Doctor paid him no mind and the woman in question gestured to leave it alone. Meanwhile, the Doctor weighted the weapon in his hands, his fingers all but stroking across the barrel of the gun. The almost intimate display did worry Spandrell a bit; perhaps they had all been mistaken about the Time Lord's intentions? At that moment, he clucked his tongue as if he had discovered something.

"What is it, Doctor?", Lady Arkytior questioned.

For a split second, he thought about ignoring her – Spandrell could see it in his eyes. The two exchanged a glance and the Doctor turned around to face the cause of his troubles. He looked her over again. It made sense, in a way, that she was from Oakdown, the house that had produced the most renegade and dangerous Time Lords. She may not have abandoned Gallifrey (quite the contrary) or hatched some evil, maniacal plan about controlling the universe, but she certainly wasn't what he would call a well-adapted Time Lady. Her term had upset the order on Gallifrey so much that, if those two Time Lords in the changing room were correct, she had brought the entire council against her. Something to do with the CIA; if only he knew what she had done...

Still, she was not... She clearly cared too much for that. And he was anything but well-adapted himself. Perhaps he should give her the benefit of the doubt.

If only she had a different name!

"This gun wasn't fired."

"But we heard the shot!", Spandrell protested.

"Ah, but I never said that there wasn't one, only it did not come from this gun."

"How do you know?", the young woman asked, reaching out to see the weapon herself. The Doctor approached to place it in her hands and explain his findings. Without noticing he turned in a way that excluded Spandrell from their circle, so focused was he on the Lady President. He pointed at the barrel as he spoke.

"If this gun had been recently fired, the laser would have warmed the barrel. You should be able to feel it, but instead it is cold to the touch."

Lady Arkytior turned to her Castellan as the man rounded the pair.

"He is right, but if this isn't the gun, then where is the one that was fired?"

"And why was this one in the gallery in the first place," the guard queried.

"To frame me/the Doctor," both young Time Lords replied instantly. Spandrell raised an eyebrow as the two exchanged a glance and flushed. They quickly looked away from one another.

 _Dear Rassilon_ , Spandrell thought, _all this flirting, do I have to watch this?!_

"There's more," the Doctor added hastily to disperse the awkwardness. He took the gun back from the Castellan and pointed a finger at the Seal of Rassilon ornament on the gallery wall above the door. He then aimed at it carefully and fired, but missed the ornament by a good few feet. "You try it, Castellan."

"Very well," Spandrell replied somewhat non-plussed. He wasn't sure what this was supposed to proof except that the Doctor was a lousy shot. He didn't need to prove his innocence anymore, so it was unclear as to why that would be of interest. But when the Castellan tried to hit the ornament, he too missed by several feet. He had the young guard try next as the man was a trained soldier, but even that training did not yield better results.

"One bad shot seems plausible, but three. There's something wrong with the gun, isn't there?", Lady Arkytior asked with a raised eyebrow as he Doctor offered her the gun as well. She declined with a gesture of her hand.

"It was manipulated to miss. There was no way the shot could have hit the Lady President," the Doctor admitted. "I was supposed to be framed with a gun that could never hit the mark. I couldn't have hit you or the assassin even if I'd made it to the gallery and the gun."

"The assassin being someone from the council?", the Castellan questioned.

"It would make sense. The crowd immediately below the podium would have been composed of the council members... I just can't believe that one of them would go so far as to kill me. Especially since I was resigning anyway! And to what end frame you, Doctor? The investigation would have yielded the manipulation, surely," Lady Arkytior argued.

"Would there have been an investigation", the Castellan asked gravely. "You heard how eager Chancellor Goth was to make an example out of the Doctor. Immediate trial and then, probably, execution. It wouldn't have given us the time to investigate. If you had died, my Lady..."

The expression on her face seemed to war between shock, anger and incredulity. Clearly Lady Arkytior did not want to imagine such proceedings, so clearly against the word and spirit of their ancient laws. She turned to the Doctor as if realizing for the first time what could have been lost, not just her life but his too and the truth to boot, a hand raised as if to comfort him or perhaps to assure herself that he was real. The anguish in her gaze must have stirred something in the Time Lord, because he caught her hand mid-air and squeezed it gently in reassurance.

"What would you have done?", she asked softly.

"I don't know. Tried to convince the Castellan here of my innocence I suppose and somehow arrested the proceedings of my trial – who knows, I might have run for president!", he replied cautiously at first, but ended on a mischievous grin. It seemed exactly the answer Lady Arkytior needed because she chuckled at the absurdity and ingenuity of that mad idea.

"We should check the data recordings next," the Castellan suggested, gesturing to the man to get Runcible on the task as he entered the Panopticon. He had been summoned by the Chancellary Guard. The Castellan felt like he was intruding on a private moment, but they were not only faced with an assassin on the loose, but also standing in plain view of another attempt from various possible points. It had nothing to do with how uncomfortable the budding... something between the two young Time Lords made him. Nothing whatsoever, but he really should have never consented to take the Lady President along on this investigation. He'd be spared these... distractions and could focus on the matter at hand. Perhaps he should suggest...

"Yes, quite. Perhaps old Runcible's equipment managed to capture something inadvertently."

"Yes, in the meantime, perhaps you should retreat to your chambers, my Lady. The Panopticon is rather too open and easily accessible. He might try again."

"He might, and if I'm in my chambers, he will know exactly where to find me. At least with you I will be on the move. A much harder target, yes?"

"Oh, um, well... You would be well-guarded, my Lady. I assure you-"

"This assassin already infiltrated the Panopticon and so did I, in fact I even managed to enter the Lady President's changing rooms despite your guards' best attempts to capture me," the Doctor pointed out unhelpfully. _Well, he would_ , Spandrell supposed, and he did have a point unfortunately. Before Spandrell could elaborate on his argument further (or resign himself to the inevitable), a scream tore through the Panopticon. Without thinking about it, the company of three bolted toward the sound, up into the gallery. When they reached Runcible, he was staring in horror at the camera. The guard who had accompanied him looked equally stricken. The Doctor and Spandrell rounded on them to look into the camera barrel and in an instant, the Castellan felt sick to the bone. The Lady President had taken no notice of the horror yet, preferring to focus on the two frightened men. She gently brought Runcible out of his shocked paralysis and sent him along to get the recordings. As she moved to turn toward them, out of the corner of his eye Spandrell noticed the Doctor shift his position in order to obscure her view. Despite feeling both irked and amused at the gallantry, he was grateful that he and the Doctor were in accord for once. She did not need to see the miniaturized man in the camera barrel, horrifically compressed to death. Lady Arkytior, who had not failed to notice the two men's silent agreement or the Doctor's deliberate movement, opened her mouth to question them, but again it was the Doctor who salvaged the situation by interceding.

"I know who tried to kill you, my Lady!", he exclaimed hastily. The President looked ready to protest the change of topic and also somewhat crestfallen at the formal address the renegade bestowed on her, but nodded for him to continue. Spandrell wanted to thank Rassilon for the Doctor's timely intervention, but the man's tone took on a more challenging, even hostile tone towards the Lady President as he proceeded. "The camera technician was killed using a Tissue Compression Eliminator. It's the signature of a renegade Time Lord I know only too well-"

"The Master," Lady Arkytior deadpanned.

"So you know him then?!", the Doctor thundered and Spandrell thought that for all their earlier flirting, they were definitely mixing their signals. It was too early in their acquaintance for a lover's spat and he should intervene anyhow, defend the Lady President, but he had a feeling it would not serve them, any of them, well if he were to get in the middle of this.

"No," she replied tersely. "That was a bit before my time." The Doctor looked wounded at her malicious tone. Not that he didn't deserve it, but did she have to bring up their age difference. It made him feel... wrong? Wrong for what? He didn't know how to define it, only that he did not care for the feeling. "But I do know the history of my House, Doctor. That is the cause of your sudden change in attitude toward me, isn't it, the revelation of my ties to Oakdown? I'll have you know that not all members of our ancient House are madmen and murderers!"

"I never said they were," the Doctor mumbled more quietly.

"Good, because in fact, many of us take extreme exception to the Master and his crimes!"

"I never said you didn't..."

"Then stop looking at me like you expect me to grow horns an start breathing fire or try to subjugate the rest of the universe!", she cried, outraged. She had worked herself up quite a bit, so much so that her respiratory bypass hadn't even kicked in as she continued to bark at him. Her chest heaving for breath, she could only imagine what her face must look like. Flushed, no doubt, in her anger, her teeth gritted, her normally smooth features a feral mask she usually only adopted for particularly unruly council members second-guessing her for the exact same reason the Doctor did. Only then she did it deliberately. She was used to it by now, used to it enough that it should not affect her so. Yet somehow, having the Doctor doubt her for her provenance hurt so much worse that she had lashed out in order to mask the pain even from herself. She turned around hastily because as her anger faded with her self-analysis, her chest began to hurt with a sense of betrayal she had no right to feel. She barely knew him; she should not be so surprised.

"I'm sorry," she heard him say simply, but she was not ready to let go. She heard a shuffle behind her and then his hand was on her shoulder as he repeated the apology.

"I'm sorry," he said again and just like that she felt the storm abate and the calm inside her return.

She turned around to him again, ready to accept his apology, but looking up into his face so close to hers, no words came out and instead the breath she had taken left her in a rush. His face was open, contrite; he had not meant to hurt her. Suspicion merely came naturally where the Master was concerned. She wasn't sure whether that made it better or worse. Before she could contemplate the matter further, Spandrell stepped closer and the moment was broken.

"The Master?", he questioned, both the Lady President and the Doctor turning to him in disbelief.

"He's my sworn archenemy. A fiend who glories in death and destruction."

"And a Time Lord, I gather."

"Long ago," Lady Arkytior murmured, shaking her head.

"A lot of things are becoming clearer," the Doctor mused, still focusing on her. She seemed to have forgiven him his earlier impertinence, but somehow her face wouldn't let him go. It had gone so quickly from soft and benevolent to feral. He had flinched internally at the sudden change. He wondered if that was what his enemies saw when he became the Oncoming Storm... She was like an intricate puzzle that he couldn't quite figure out. A challenge, much like the one his enemy had issued by drawing him here – with her pretty face...

"Not to me," Spandrell interjected before the two youngsters could get caught up in a conversation of their own again.

"If the Master is here on Gallifrey, then this is his final challenge. Explains why I was brought here. There are old scores to settle. And that's just a sort of greetings card."

"An attempt on the President's life and a man compressed to death is this Master's idea of a greetings card? Abhorrent," the Castellan grumbled. "My Lady, I must insist that you retreat to your quarters for safety. I will have the Captain of my guard escort you personal-"

"Not happening," she replied simply. "I am not sitting around, playing target while the Master's plays his intricate game with all of our lives. The man is a renegade of my house and I will see him brought in to face justice for his crimes."

Spandrell looked to the Doctor for help, unlikely though it may be. Yet the other Time Lord's face was drawn in a worried frown, perhaps he would agree with the Castellan after all. The two men exchanged a quick look before the Doctor took his turn at persuading the President.

"Actually, your Ladyship, I have to agree with the Castellan. Surely it would be safer-"

"Safer for whom? Me? Gallifrey? You? I think it has become clear that I wasn't the real target. The Master is after you, for him I was merely a means to an end, but there is a very real council member for whom my death would have been a grab for power or else why risk their life to be involved?! Now that that has failed the Master will come for you more directly and so long as he is not apprehended, he poses a danger to Gallifrey. You will both remember that I am still responsible for her safety until my official resignation."

The other two exchanged another look, the Doctor shrugging as if to say he had tried. When Spandrell's sigh also indicated his acquiescence, she continued.

"I want to know all you know of the Master and if there is a feud between the two of you, it should not be settled on Gallifrey!", she told him firmly, "but I expect it's already too late for that."

"Quite, it cannot be avoided now," the Doctor confirmed. "Like it or not, Gallifrey is involved and I fear things shall never be quite the same again... Shall we go down?"

After a moment, she nodded. The Doctor offered his hand to lead her away while the Castellan ordered his guard to respectfully remove the body of the technician. The Doctor kept his body in the President's line of sight when she turned her head around to look back at hearing those instructions. She huffed a bit at the action, but smiled as she found it somewhat endearing. She kept her hand in his as they moved, though she needed no help moving through the gallery even in all the frills of her ceremonial robe.

"I'm not delicate, you know."

"Then why did they name you for a flower?", he asked jokingly, and the ache returned. That slight ache he felt when she first mentioned her name. She may think that only her affiliation with the Master's house had struck him a blow, and this was mostly true, but her name – his granddaughter's name, his precious Susan; how long he had not seen her! How long since he abandoned her for her to pursue her own happiness. He shook himself of the thoughts when he noticed her inquisitive look. He had expected admonishment for his remark, but something of his thoughts must have shown on his face. "I didn't expect you to be, given your career, but that was a sight I would wish to unsee. Several times over, in fact. If I could have done the same for Spandrell, I would have."

"Thank you."

Before he could answer, the Castellan joined them on their way down the stairs.

"If he is a Time Lord, there will be a DE on him in the archives."

"Perhaps, perhaps." The Doctor had his doubts.

"What do you mean, perhaps? There is a full bio on every Time Lord."

The Doctor was about to reply when Runcible's entrance distracted him. His movements were strange. Instinctively, he used his grip on the President's hand to move her behind him in case the Master had gotten a hold of Runcible's mind. Instead, the man collapsed before them and only then did they see the knife stuck in his back. The first to move, the Lady Arkytior rushed passed him to the body. She felt for a pulse, then raised her head and shook it. They had lost someone else. The Doctor's teeth gritted as he moved them quickly toward the archives to see if they could recuperate any information on the Master. Also, the control room was much smaller than the Panopticon and only had one entrance, allowing them better control over the safety of their remaining party. Spandrell could not believe that so many men had already been killed in a single day, but the Doctor knew it was only the beginning. The Master was merely getting warmed up.

"Nothing Castellan," the keeper of the archive told them. "There is no record of any Time Lord ever adopting the name The Master."

The Doctor and the President exchanged another meaningful glance. They had both suspected this would be the outcome of their search.

"He destroyed it, didn't he?"

"It would have been the first thing he'd done, no doubt, my Lady," the Doctor confirmed."

"According to Coordinator Engin the data could not have been withdrawn without the fact being recorded. I thought that yours had been scanned recently, but he assured me that it wasn't possible."

"Rubbish!," the Doctor exclaimed. "Anyone with a little criminal know-how could do it. I could do it myself!"

He, Engin and Spandrell then engaged in a small, but heated argument about the security of the technology used in storing the Time Lords' bio data as well as the Master's and the Doctor's own mental faculties and criminal know-how, as he had called it. While the three men were thus occupied, Arkytior rolled her eyes and moved about the archives' machinery. She had a horrible suspicion about what additional activities the Master might have engaged in once he had somehow gained access to the archives and, no doubt, Matrix. A quick check confirmed her fears as facts. Numb, their continued argument faded into the background. She wanted to sit down; she felt sick to the core of her being. She wanted a moment to gather her thoughts, think about how to inform them of the Master's actions without endangering her own secrets. Suddenly, their noise came back to her all at once. It seemed so much louder than before, irritating and unhelpful.

"He looked at mine too," she merely said. It got their attention and all was quiet in an instant. No one moved, no one talked; she wasn't sure Engin was still breathing. The Doctor was the first to react, as she expected. He got up from the chair an joined her at the console opposite. He grasped her hand and squeezed as he had done earlier. She found no comfort in the gesture now.

"With mine he could have sent me that premonition, using the minds of deceased Time Lords in the Matrix," he murmured to her. "Did he send you visions too?"

She shook her head, unable to answer. How could she tell him? Tell him that he was no doubt interested by rumors about an inexplicable incident in her youth, during her initiation. A spark of something touched her then. Something yet to occur... She did not know what it was, no one knew. She had never looked at her data set, but she had little doubt that it detailed the events of her initiation. It recorded everything. By now it was all but forgotten and she was safer as long as no one remembered.

How could she tell him? How could she not?

The Doctor took the burden of speech from her. "The Master intercepted the prediction of your assassination and transferred it to my mind using my bio data."

"Thus luring you here to take the fall for him?", she whispered. She did not trust her voice, but she was grateful he returned their conversation to the Master himself. "But how did he access the Matrix if he couldn't do it from here?"

"By going in there."

"In there? How?"

"It's a repository of brain patterns. A living mind should have no trouble entering; getting out might be a problem... And if I go in there, I could discover where he intersected the circuit."

"I couldn't allow that," Engin protested. "It's too dangerous. The psychosomatic feedback could kill you."

"Then it's a good thing the decision is not yours," the Doctor replied quickly. All eyes fell to her. She wanted to groan. She agreed with Engin, but she could see the Doctor was determined. He would find a way in there with or without her help and in that case she preferred he do this with all the help they could offer him. A nod from Spandrell further convinced her that they could do this.

"Are you certain?"

"It's our best chance."

 _That's not what I asked_ , she thought, but nodded. Despite final concerns, Engin managed to integrate the Doctor's brain pattern into the Matrix. The pain on his features and his silent scream tore at Arkytior. She moved to sit on the edge of the slide where he had laid down and took hold of his hand. There was nothing else she could do for him. They would monitor his condition and he would probably nor even notice the pressure of her hand, but it felt like the right thing to do.

DoctorWhoDoctorWho

The Doctor woke inside the Matrix to unknown sadistic laughter. As he came to fully, he felt his body aching from the pain of the transition. Getting up he looked at the barren surroundings. Rocks and pebbles, further away he thinks he can identify some green, but it all looked very desolate. Wafts of smoke hindered his view. The laughter followed him as he took his first unsure steps in the virtual reality. He misstepped and slid down the side of a hill. Only just able to wind his scarf around a puny root, a samurai suddenly appeared to cut it through. The pain of the slide over the rocks had him scream, then nothing.

Pain flared and faded quickly. He had barely a grip on any sort of consciousness and what he did have was fading fast. He could let go, just let go as the pain is fading with it. He liked the lack of pain, but with it his mind seemed to fade as well. Perhaps, just for a while, he could welcome the nothingness, its sweet relief. There was a pressure building as he retreated, faded, let go, a strong, gentle pressure. Warm and welcome and new and unknown and familiar. Where was it? He reached for it, wanted to pull it to himself, cocoon himself in it. Reaching it turned him to wakefulness. With a sudden stroke of clarity he located the feeling in the palm of his hand. His hand tingled with it. Warm and comfortable.

"Lady... Rose," he whispered to himself. He spent a moment trying to imagine Engin or Spandrell holding his hand and it brought a smile to his lips. No, it must be the Lady... Rose.

The feeling remained with him as he rolled out from under his attacker, who now impersonated a caricatured version of a doctor. _Hilarious_ , the Doctor thought. A moment later, the shelling started. As he ran, the shelling followed him, one hitting the ground so close to him that a splinter or rubble caught him in the leg and had him stumble down a ravine. His head buzzed when he finally hit bottom, but the Doctor barely allowed himself the time to shake his head clear before he got up again. Or tried to; his leg gave way and he stumbled back onto the ground with an unexpected yelp of pain. Looking at his leg, he noticed a rather long laceration. It was bleeding profusely and would no doubt lead his unknown enemy to his whereabouts if left unattended. He focused his mind on his leg, denying the reality of the wound. As he was in the matrix, he knew none of what happened was real and tried to superimpose that fact onto his subjective experience withing the artificial world. When he opened his eyes after a moment, the wound was gone, but it reappeared again only a moment later accompanied by an insane, sadistic laugh.

"This is my world, Doctor!", the voice mocked. "I rule here!"

The Doctor gritted his teeth in anger. Because his enemy had created this world, he had superior power over it. It would take the Doctor too much effort to try and reign it in on his own. He moved to rip a strip of cloth from his shirt to bandage the wound, but thought better of it. Instead he focused again on that warm tingling that still engulfed his hand. It had been reduced to a subtle background sensation by his more pressing needs, but now he concentrated on it until he could all but feel Rose's hand in his. He squeezed gently as he telepathically sent a sense of urgency in her general direction. He wasn't sure if she would receive it, or if she would know what he was asking if she did and he couldn't stay in this spot or risk being found, so he ultimately decided to bandage the wound anyway for the time being.

He noticed what looked like a forested area a few meters ahead and made his way over. Behind the initial shrubbery he found train tracks that seemed oddly out of place, until he recalled the parody doctor and the plane shooting at him. A deliberate irony, no doubt, to attempt to kill him in the Matrix using things found on his favorite planet, Earth. As he mused, his ankle was suddenly squashed painfully. Looking down, he found that the switch had been changed. His foot was stuck between two train tracks and now he could hear the oncoming traffic. Brilliant. The Doctor pulled and pressed and squeezed his ankle to get out, but his foot wouldn't budge and the train was coming ever closer. There was that maniacal laugh again as it approached.

DoctorWhoDoctorWho

The Doctor's form was unearthly still, but the Lady President walked up and down the small space incessantly. She alternated between casting worried glances in the direction of the charming renegade and checking on Engin's progress in finding the location from which the other Time Lord accessed the Matrix – or at least finding out what was going on in there. She couldn't stand the deathly silence, interrupted only by the beeping of various machines. The Doctor was trapped in the Matrix and they were stuck out here unable to help or even see what was happening. It had been foolish of the Doctor to enter the Matrix alone. Someone should have gone with him, but both Engin and the Castellan were far too old for the battle of wills that was likely taking place inside. Perhaps one of the Chancellary Guard – she wanted to laugh at herself, knowing that she should have insisted she go with him to help. She was the only one with a high enough count of atron energy to even have a chance at surviving it. She would have been the logical choice, but the Doctor would never have-

Her thought were interrupted suddenly by insistent and alarming beeping that had both Engin and the Castellan both rushing toward the Doctor's prone form. She was with them in an instant.

"What happened?!"

"His mental activity has dropped to an dangerously low level. The strain of being connected to the Matrix, my Lady" Engin explained.

"Well, do something," Spandrell ordered with a worried look at the stricken face of the President.

"There's nothing I can do. If I try to forcibly extract him from the Matrix, his mind might remain stuck in the artificial world or worse, break down completely. I'm sorry, Mylady, there is nothing I can do from here. It's up to the Doctor."

"Oh, I should have never allowed him to go in there on his own," she chastised herself. Without thinking, she approached the Doctor and sat down next to him again. She grasped his right hand in both of hers. "Can you hear me, Doctor? We're losing you. You have to fight back. Hold on."

After a moment, the warning noises stopped and the computers indicated that the strain had reduced to bearable levels for the time being.

Spandrell and Engin looked away, feeling as if they were intruding on a private moment. The Castellan's jaw set a little more tightly. It was ridiculous since the two had only just met and it was reckless of the President to grow so attached. She had enough enemies without befriending one of the Time Lord's most elusive renegades. He shook his head quietly, looking around for something, anything to change the topic. Finally, his gaze fell on the computer analysis they had been running, trying to find out what was going on.

"Well, Engin, anything useful that the computers can tell us?"

Engin latched onto the change of topic without hesitation.

"According to the calculations, the Doctor's adversary must be expanding a lot of energy in order to keep the virtual reality stable. So, he should be able to gain the advantage if he can provide adequate distraction."

"Now if only we had a way of informing him," Spandrell mused. "Isn't there any way we can communicate?"

"No, Castellan, not without sending someone else in-"

They heard the President breathe in as if to speak.

"Not happening," Spandrell cut her off before she could say what he was afraid she might.

"No, Castellan, I- I think the Doctor has solved that problem for us," she told him in a breathy voice. Both men turned around to look at her. He had squeezed her hand, she was sure of it. His hand hadn't moved, but she had felt the soft pressure nonetheless. And there had been mental contact as well. She was a whirlwind of feelings and sensations – struggle, pain, fear, comfort, yearning, help. For a moment, she couldn't quite sort out which ones were hers and which belonged to the Doctor, but finally she managed to untangle her mind from the primal surge of desperate need that had overwhelmed her. "He's asking for help."

"Asking for... But how?", Spandrell wanted to know, then his eyes fell on their still joined hands and he remembered that they were all touch telepaths. Of course; that was what the President's sharp intake of breath had been about. An unexpected telepathic surge crashing into you like a tidal wave would knock the air out of anyone. "What is going on?"

"I don't know. All I can sense is that he's in pain, a little afraid and that he wants me to help him, but I don't know how."

"I might...", Engin said absentmindedly and moved over to a dusty old set of control panels that looked like they hadn't been used since the days of Rassilon. "This is actually for the Inquisitor to use... Uhm..."

He looked hopefully to the Lady President.

"You have my permission to use it – whatever it is – just get on with it, Engin," she told him urgently.

"It allows us to look into the Matrix; see what is happening-"

"And you only tell us now?!", both the President and the Castellan called out in irritation.

"Well, it's not used very often and... I only just remembered. I'm not getting any younger, you know."

"Just switch it on," the President told him and then almost wished she hadn't. The image of the Doctor appeared as he stood on a set of train tracks, desperately trying to get his foot out so he could jump out of the way of the oncoming train. He pulled and pulled but the foot wouldn't budge – and was that blood that was seeping through a strip of white shirt cloth?! They watched as he kept pulling for a moment, before the Lady President remembered his telepathic message. She tightened her grip on his hand and let her mind surge forward of its own to tangle with his. The Doctor on the screen jumped a little at the sudden sensation, but then grinned as she felt him open his mind to her, but instead of trying to free his foot, she felt him direct their combined mental power toward the train itself. In the image, he closed his eyes and when he opened them again a moment later, the train and the tracks were gone. He unwrapped the white cloth from his leg, holding open the rip in his trousers to see nothing but smooth skin, wound and blood vanished.

"Rose," he murmured and she felt a wave of gratitude envelop her mind. The name startled her. It was true that her Gallifreyan name Arkytior roughly translated as rose in Earth English, but why that language? Why not simply address her by Arkytior? Then again, the personal address itself made her flush a little. True, she had offered him her name, but now that he had used it, it seemed so intimate. She had only just met him, after all.

 _We can hear you... and see you on a screen_ , Rose informed him quickly. His grin only grew wider, but his cheeks seemed to flush a little and the distraction made him stumble into what looked like a dinosaur egg, spreading yolk all over his boot.

There was an awkward moment of silence in the room, while Spandrell and Engin were very busy counting the non-existing tiles on the floor.

"Let's see if we can dissolve this virtual reality together," the Doctor spoke quietly, already concentrating on dissolving the imaginary environment. "After all it is just a computation."

Rose focused herself on helping him and for a moment it seemed they were successful as the screen faded mostly to black and displayed complex Gallifreyan equations. But then there was an overwhelming sense of nausea as too many images blurred together into a bright, confusing tunnel. While the Doctor fell to the sandy ground that had reappeared after a moment, even Rose felt herself sway into real world, blindly extending a hand as she fell forward. The Castellan and Engin were with her immediately; she could vaguely hear their voices, but could not make out what they were saying right away. The only thing that sounded real was the Doctor's rapid double heartbeat. She concentrated on that to ground herself, until she felt the nausea pass and straightened herself.

The Doctor too slowly got up again, a small mental grumble of irritation at the cry of a vulture above him. The mockery of his love of Earth, so soon after he had been forced to abandon Sarah there only to be lured into a trap, was beginning to tire him. Sitting up, he saw two eyes appear in the side of the ravine.

"I told you this is my world, Doctor," a low, menacing voice whispered. "There is no escape for you. And now you have condemned the Lady President as well. I can feel her presence through yours in the Matrix. When I sever the connection, my victory will be sweetened by her pain."

Instinctively, the Doctor tried to cut the connection himself. The voice, although belonging to a madman was right. If he died in the Matrix, while his mind was still entangled with the President's, she would be exposed to a mental backlash of massive proportions. He had been foolish to intensify their connection after discovering that she had taken his hand in the real world. He had been so flattered and touched and had desired her help so desperately that he hadn't considered the danger he posed to her. He had risked her wellbeing for his sentimentality and a sense of kinship he felt with her that baffled him. He made an effort to untangle his mind from hers, but as soon as he retreated the tendrils of her presence followed after him.

"Rose," he grunted, agitated.

 _We will do this together_ , she told him stubbornly.

"You could-"

"This is your best chance, now stop fighting me," she said out loud at the same time as she chastised him mentally. He grudgingly caved, but she could feel him put up some barriers to minimize the points of contact. As if that would protect her; if he died, those shields would be the first to fall, but if it gave him peace of mind, she wouldn't argue. Her hands tightened on his again as he made his way back to the forested area when he was shot at with a rifle. The forest environment had somehow moved during their little mental exercise, but now he desperately needed it for cover and her fingers clenched around his hand as she watched him scramble for it. She, the Castellan and Engin followed his movements as he circled back to climb up a small hill to get a good look at his follower. When the other man, his face covered in a black mask, opened fire, the Doctor slid back down the hill to hide in a nearby cave as the hunter approached.

He watched quietly as the figure searched the grounds for him, then stopped to lift the mask a little and drink from a canteen of water. The Doctor cocked his head to the side. Technically, neither of them needed to eat or drink while in the Matrix, although their bodies might have to. Perhaps it was something in the environment of his body that his mind responded to with virtual thirst – an instability in the connection, perhaps. Now that he watched, though, the Doctor himself began to feel thirsty as if the rules of this fictional world demanded the same nutrition as the real world.

Meanwhile 'Rose' related his thoughts to Engin.

"Well," the elder Time Lord mused. "He is concentrating a lot of mental power. If he is using some kind of enhancement device, it is possible that the body is being taxed enormously and the brain tries to translate this into the virtual reality."

"Like a warning?", Spandrell asked.

"Precisely."

"Then it spells trouble that the Doctor now also feels thirsty."

The Doctor meanwhile kept watching quietly as the hunter checked a map, then posited his equipment in a secluded spot between a few rocks. Taking only his rifle, he rushed of to the Doctor's right, presumably to get set a trap for him somewhere. When the Doctor was sure his adversary was out of hearing range, he quickly but quietly climbed down toward the equipment, keeping low against the ground. First, he grabbed the canteen to take a few satisfying swigs of the imaginary water it contained, only to find that it was empty. When he rattled the canteen for even a drop of the liquid, he felt a soothing touch to his right hand. Despite his irritation at even experiencing the need for water, it calmed him down a little. Rummaging through the backpack, he found a hand grenade and some string that gave him an idea. Securing the grenade between the trunk and a twig of a nearby bush, he set a trap for his hunter.

Then the Doctor decided to follow in the direction the man had disappeared to. A few paces into the jungle, he heard the hunter come back and quickly hid in the underbrush. Crouching in hopes of not being seen, he kept a steady eye on the progress of the hunter. He had to be ready for a fight at the slightest hint of having been seen. His hearts sped up noticeably as the hunter approached him, but thankfully the man just passed him by. Looking in the direction from which his adversary had just come, the Doctor wondered aloud what he might have been up to and followed the path the other seemed to have taken. He didn't get very far before his enemy triggered the booby trap he'd left for him, hopefully destroying his equipment and buying himself some time.

"Did he get him?", Rose asked hopefully.

"If I had, this nightmare would have ended," the Doctor mused out loud as the question reverberated in his mind. He swayed for a moment, tired and resigned, but throwing in the towel wasn't his style. He needed water now, though, his body was burning from the imaginary heat and dehydration. Following in the direction from which his hunter had come minutes before, he made his way over to a pond, sinking to his knees in relief at finding water. He was ready to sink his hands into the refreshing liquid and quench his thirst when a dreadful suspicion came to him. Looking around he found a small empty bottle and took a whiff of it. It had a pungent oder that he could not identify, but the Doctor still had little doubt as to what had been in the bottle. The assassin had been foolish to leave it here as evidence of his action. He looked over the pond; perhaps if he went further out, the poison would not have contaminated the water yet or perhaps he could use a straw to drink from the bottom of the pond. The poison may not have reached there yet.

The Doctor shook his head; the risk was too great, but he could not go thirsty all this time. Rassilon knew when he'd defeat the assassin and make it out of this hellish place. He felt a warmth spread across his mind as Rose tried to calm his budding panic before it could lead him to do something foolish. He was equally grateful and irritated at her sudden intervention in his mind. The superficial telepathic bond they had maintained so far had been pleasant, a great comfort to him, but this was more like an intrusion on her part. He felt how she was stung by his anger and her remorse and was immediately sorry he had judged her so harshly. He grasped onto her presence as it retreated. It hovered at the edges of his mind indecisively for a few moments, before she suggested shyly that he might try to obtain water from the surrounding earth; it should be saturated with it. Immediately, he broke off some of the reed and cleaned it out. Using his hands, he formed a small pit and waited for dirty water to gather at its center. He didn't hesitate to cool his burning throat with the life-saving water. When he had quenched his thirst, he flushed bashfully. He hadn't even stopped to thank her for her help. He felt a phantom squeeze against his hand as his mind filled with her amusement.

He smiled widely himself, but when he heard footsteps approaching, he scrambled to get out of the way of the hunter. The booming voice of his persecutor followed him into the woods, resonating, it seemed, from the very molecules of the air as it threatened him. The Doctor picked up his pace a little, while keeping an eye out for possible hiding places or places where he might be able to set a trap. Running through the underbrush, something caught his skin, making him wince in pain. He took a closer look at the plant, only to see it was covered in nasty-looking thorns. An idea came to him. He gathered up the thorns and moved to climb up a nearby tree. He could hear the assassin stumbling through the forest after him, so he tipped the thorns in the remaining liquid in the poison bottle he had found earlier and positioned himself to use his reed pipe as a blowgun. Then he waited. He heard the assassin approach through the bushes a moment later. It was clear that he hadn't spotted the Doctor yet.

He felt the pressure on his hand increase as worried anticipation drifted through his mind from his connection to Rose. He admonished her mildly to reign herself in; he could not risk distraction now. The pressure eased and her worry retreated behind an improvised shield, the strength of which surprised him. It was replaced with calm confidence, though the feeling was very faint, because Rose didn't feel at all confident. The Doctor concentrated on waiting again. Even as the hunter was almost underneath the tree and in a clear line of sight, the Doctor kept his nerve and waited for the best possible shot. Only then did he fire the poisoned thorn at his persecutor, hitting him in the leg, but he had overestimated the time it would take the other man to react. He fired his rifle at the Doctor that, in his haste to retaliate, thankfully only hit him in the shoulder. Nonetheless, it caused the Doctor's painful fall from the tree on which he had been perched. An involuntary scream tore itself from his throat at the sudden pain. When his body hit the ground, it knocked the remaining air out of him and the renegade Time Lord rolled helplessly on the ground for a few precious seconds as he tried to reign in the pain. Luckily, the assassin had his own worries and could not follow the Doctor just yet. Rose, to her credit, didn't drop the shield to let her probably increased worry roam freely through his mind. Instead she cast her mind soothingly over the portion of his mind that registered pain, helping him to regain control over his body. When he thus finally regained his senses, he rolled onto his back, wincing with a new surge of pain. A glance at his blood-soaked shirt told him that he had actually been his in his upper left arm. He pushed himself to his feet without further hesitation, but stumbled back to the ground at the first try. Grunting in pain and irritation, he got up again. He felt Rose's inquiry about denying the wound, but there was no time; he had to get away as long as the hunter was occupied.

DoctorWhoDoctorWho

The three people following the development on screen winced in unison while they watched the Doctor struggle to his feet. The wound was not real of course, but they could see its very real effect on the Doctor's mental projection as he shuffled away cradling his injured arm close to his chest. Engin and the Castellan sent surreptitious glances toward the Lady President. She was still sat next to the renegade and holding his hand carefully. Spandrell could see her thumb moving worriedly across his skin, her eyes oscillating between watching the screen and watching his face. He opened his mouth, though what to say he did not know, but before he could offer any words of assurance or advice, they were interrupted by a Chancellary Guard coming into the room with a message.

"Madam President, I have a message from the Chancellor," the guard announced. "He'd like the Doctor brought to him."

"Whatever for?", she questioned him.

"I'm afraid he didn't say, Madam President."

"Well, that's just-"

"Soris, isn't it?", the Castellan asked, interrupting the Lady President with an apologetic look.

"Yes, sir."

"He's one of th Chancellor's personal guards," Spandrell told the Lady President and Engin.

"Well, he'll have to wait. It should be over soon, one way or the other," Engin informed him.

A small noise from the President and a glare from the Castellan chastised him. He apologized for the crudeness of his words, while the guard approached to take a closer look at the Doctor's condition.

"No, Engin is right," Rose admitted. "He's been in there several minutes now; how much longer can his mind hold out?"

Engin sighed.

"There's no data on that available, Madam, but his body is on the point of collapse now if his readings are any indication. Low blood pressure, shallow breathing, carbon dioxide increasing – he can't last much longer," Engin explained with a gesture toward a computer monitoring the Doctor's life signs as they saw him struggle to move over the terrain on the screen. "I'm sorry, Madam President. I wish I could give you better news."

They watched him collapse in the reed in fatigue.

"Doctor, you can't give up now," Rose told him quietly.

"I must keep going," the Doctor on screen agreed as if he had heard her and Spandrell really didn't want to think about how deep their telepathic bond ran. The Castellan saw Rose raise his hand to tuck it under her chin, grasped in both of hers, and when the Doctor said it again, he sounded more convinced. "I must keep going."

"It's only a mental battle, though," Spandrell questioned. "If the Doctor is losing, why can't he just pull out?"

Engin shook his head lightly.

"It's not that simple; his enemy must have been in the Matrix many times before- Don't touch that!", he interrupted his explanation, calling everyone's attention to the guard's actions. The young man had shifted positions again toward the control panel, his hand dangerously close to a large button. Spandrell's and Rose's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but when the guard backed off without hesitation, everything settled down again and Engin resumed his explanation. "He has created a dreamscape, a mental stronghold if you will. The Doctor is caught up in it."

"So he doesn't stand a chance?"

"A very slight one," Engin admitted. "His enemy must expend energy to uphold the reality, while the Doctor himself can use all of his atron energy and mental fortitude to fight him."

The Castellan was about to reply, but a rustle of robes and a loud smack caught his attention. When he turned around he saw the Lady President had grasped onto the wrist of the guard, again hovering dangerously close to the control panel. It took only a moment to sink in that the guard had tried to push the button and even as Spandrell was standing up, the Lady President was pushing the young man farther away from the control panel, making him stumble to the ground.

"You were told to stay back," the Castellan boomed at the man.

"I obey only my Master!", the guard shouted as he made another attempt to press the button. Spandrell would have pulled out his blaster and shot him, but the Lady President was too close for his liking. She had moved herself between the guard and the control panel and when Soris tried again, the two struggled. The Castellan rushed to her side and together they wrestled the man down. Engin joined them to hold him on the ground, but questioned what to do with him now.

"Get some answers... Who is you master?", Spandrell asked.

"He already told us, Castellan," Rose announced in a deathly quiet voice. A glance at her revealed a mask of terrifying calm and a feral look in her eyes. Whiskey eyes swimming in gold. "I don't believe his mind is quite his own," she announced a moment later, readying her fingers at he Soris' temples to delve into his mind and remove the impurity. The Castellan had always heard rumors about the sheer force of nature that was supposedly the Lady President's mind, but he would not have believed that such a dainty, progressive and peace-loving woman was capable of committing herself to surge through every crook and crevice of Soris' mind. It was not a pretty sight; the young man screamed as if his mind were consumed in a fiery inferno as she purged him of the Master's hypnotic influence.

When it was over, the Lady President was shivering with the exertion. She was flushed and breathing heavily while Spandrell and Engin stared at her in equal parts awe and horror, then at the unconscious man on the ground. He would need medical attention, but before the Castellan could call somebody, the machinery the Doctor was hooked up to began to beep insistently. They all turned to the screen simultaneously to see the Doctor thrashing as he was held underwater by none other than Chancellor Goth. A second of stunned disbelief ticked by, before all three Time Lords rushed to the Doctor's side. Rose gripped his hand hurriedly and even Engin and Spandrell moved around to grasp his other arm. They all called out emphatically to the renegade, but had no idea if their voices got through to him.

DoctorWhoDoctorWho

Meanwhile, heavy fog hung in the air as the Doctor still evaded his persecutor. The fog was an apt change to the environment, he surmised, for his mind threatened to fog up as well. He was still losing blood, even though he had stopped briefly to tie a bandage around his arm. He could feel himself growing weaker and weaker. He had to keep a tight lid on most of the pain his imaginary body was truly experiencing, which became that much harder when suddenly Rose's comforting presence disentangled itself from his mind. Initially, he scrambled to hold on to her, but by the time he truly realized what had happened she was already gone. He raised his hand to look at it, to will that feeling of her soft grip back into it, but it was gone. She was gone and he worried something might have happened to her in the real world. He couldn't think of that now, though, he realized. He had to concentrate on the fight at hand. He stumbled into the pond from earlier, having completed his wide circle. The smell was stronger here and he knew that the fog was only covering the visible traces of the marsh gas that floated in the air. Grasping a long twig, he used it as a cane to help himself walk.

Time to talk to his assassin.

"You can't escape, Doctor! It's hopeless; you might as well give up now!", he heard the hunter call out as the Doctor hid in the greens.

"What do you want of me?", he asked, knowing his sonorous voice would carry.

"Only your life, Doctor," came the unsurprising answer. The Doctor fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Your life for my master!"

"I'll make a bargain with you-"

"No bargains!", the hunter cut him off. "Show yourself, Doctor! Get it over with... Do you hear me?!"

"No," he answered simply. "You show yourself first. Your real self." His challenge was calm, but inside him anticipation grew. He had a vague suspicion about the other man's identity and he wanted it proven before he proceeded. Just in case he didn't succeed, he wanted there to be a record. He hoped the other were still monitoring him, even though his mental connection to Rose would have been better.

"Very well, Doctor," the hunter said, pulling away the net and hat hiding his face to reveal Chancellor Goth.

"Goth," the Doctor whispered to himself. His suspicions were correct, but he could still hardly believe it. The Chancellor himself had tried to kill the Lady President of Gallifrey and frame him for the murder and then when that failed, had seen fit to draw him into this deadly nightmare. Anger boiled inside him at his thoughts. "Alright, Goth. You win."

The other man immediately raised his rifle.

 _As expected_ , the Doctor thought, making a loud noise at which Goth fired. His shot ignited the marsh gas and set him on fire, while the Doctor watched. Only when Goth fell motionless into the water did the renegade Time Lord rise from his hiding place, but something was wrong. He couldn't see the body anymore. True, the smoke from the fire had made it even harder to see, but he should have been able to make out contours. He carefully approached the water to see what was going on, even walking into it a few paces, when suddenly he found himself in a choking grip. The Doctor used his elbow to strike Goth and make him lose his grip, but as soon as he turned around the Chancellor hit him in the gut. The Doctor was not usually one for violence, but the anger slowly burning in his gut had him lunge at the other man. They grappled with one another, punching, shoving, throwing one another into the watery ground, until the Doctor fell into the water and Goth straddled him to keep him under.

"Finished, Doctor," the Chancellor ground out. "You're finished."

After a moment, when he felt no further resistance, he let go and watched the Doctor's pale form float lifelessly. Gasping for breath with the effort it had taken, Goth slowly got up. Finally, he had accomplished what the Master had wanted in return for the Presidency. In fact, he had accomplished what even the Master himself had never managed. He had killed the Doctor. He had killed the Doctor! A primitive part of him wanted to howl with the sense of victory that flooded him. He was too tired, though. The long hunt had taken all his reserves of atron energy and all his strength had been drained from him. A hand moved to his head as the excitement subsided and made way to incessant pounding. Dimly he caught sight of the renegade's body shifting, moving, rising. Soon the Doctor stood before him again, but the pain in his head wouldn't let him do anything. When the Doctor grabbed a large branch, Goth tried to pull away, but he could barely hold his balance, so the Doctor hit him square in the head with it.

The Doctor watched Goth fall down into the pond and breathed a sigh of relief. He knew it was over; their battle for survival in this inhospitable place had taken its toll on the corrupt Chancellor. He wouldn't get up again. It was over and the Doctor could return to the real world. He was so tired, though. To make the return of his own strength might break him, so instead he concentrated on that renewed connection with Rose. It had sprung up as he was pushed under the surface. It had distracted him for a moment from the struggle, the sudden telepathic connection refocusing his attention. He had stopped fighting and that had been his salvation. His respiratory by-pass had kicked in even in this world once he stopped concentrating on getting air into his virtual lungs. Thinking he was dead had made Goth let up too, allowing him to strike back against his persecutor. Now he sent Rose his request to be pulled out of the fake reality and a moment later he felt the world around him dissolve.

He woke with a sudden deep breath from his waking nightmare. He heard Engin fussing around him and several bits and bobs being turned and pressed, but he couldn't make out any of the chatter that immediately started up around him. The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut, trying to concentrate so the voices would become clearer. He slowly opened his eyes again to find Spandrell and Engin leaning over him as if to check his condition. He slowly got up into a sitting position to assure them – and himself – that he was indeed fine. Swinging his legs over the other side, he found himself suddenly face to face with Rose. She had been sitting by his side the entire time, he would imagine, evidenced by his hand still fitted snugly between her smaller ones. He studied the connection for a moment, her warm, soft fingers laced through his own. When he looked up into her face, she was smiling with relief. He squeezed her hand with a grin, glad to return the comforting gesture, and watched her flush prettily. She moved to disentangle both their hands and their minds, and though he let her telepathic presence go with some reluctance, he kept her fingers intertwined with his.

"I'm okay thanks to you," he told her wistfully. "Which is more than can be said for that poor chap. What happened to him?"

His gaze had fallen on the guard lying on the ground.

"The Master sent him in here to trap you in the Matrix. We had to restrain him and then the Lady President purged his mind of the hypnosis," Spandrell explained. "I meant to call in the medics, but you were drowning just as we were done and... I'll call now."

He pressed a button on his communicator, while the Doctor turned back to Rose.

"It's incredibly dangerous to just search through someone's head so aggressively as to remove the Master's signature," he told her tersely. "You could have ravaged his consciousness, left it decrepit or-"

"I know," she replied. "I was careful to leave his mind as untouched as possible."

"Caution isn't enough!", he insisted angrily. "You need a powerful and well-trained telepath like... like..." He hesitated for a moment under her glare, for she expected him to compare her again to his enemy. "Like me," he finally said.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"I have some experience with – mental issues...," she told him vaguely. "He will need some time and help to sort his mind out, but I was careful and made sure to leave it as intact as possible. There should only be some minor damage on the outskirts from my forced entry – and those are bad enough."

"To be fair to Madam President, the alternative was shooting him. I had already taken out my taser," the Castellan admitted.

The Doctor looked rebelliously between the two, but finally acquiesced. He had to admit he probably would have tried himself to save the boy, so he could hardly fault Rose for doing the same. It was just that she was so young and, he expected, inexperienced and it was such a dangerous task for both minds involved. She could have gotten lost or stuck in the other Time Lord's mind, or could have burnt it up from the inside leaving the boy a vegetable. Or burnt both of them up – and what did she mean by having experience with 'mental issues'. What mental issues? The Council would hardly allow a former psych ward patient to become President, so, what, had she been a nurse? What was more, it would take an incredibly powerful telepath to get rid of the Master's mind traces and they would have to have lots of atron energy stored in their bodies. He glanced at the young woman; where would she have gathered all of that atron energy if she had, as he suspected, like most Time Lords, never left Gallifrey? The more he learned about the Lady President, the more questions he found he had. It was quite stimulating to a mind like his that loved mystery and intrigue. Deliciously frustrating.

"Different topic: where is Goth? He's the Master's legman."

"We noticed," Rose growled angrily. "I never did see eye to eye with the man on, well, anything, but I can't quite believe he would go so far as to try to kill me."

"Oh, you better believe it. He just tried to kill me to silence me. Oh, I'm tired." He went from anger to exhaustion in an instant.

"Yes, you should rest. You took quite a beating in there," Engin advised.

"You should see the other chap – we all should."

"That's why he wanted an immediate tribunal," Spandrell surmised.

"Yes, yes," the Doctor answered while he finally moved to get up. He pulled Rose with him by their still entwined hands. Lucky thing, too, for he swayed the moment he was up and relied on her deceptive strength to steady himself. "It was Goth who ordered my Tardis to be transducted into he Capitol I bet. He must have guessed I was still inside it..."

"But to confront you in the Matrix, he must have his own link," Rose told him. "Where would that be?"

"Yes, a tap-in. We've got to trace it back to him before he recovers." He looked at the control panel and turned to Engin. "What's underneath here?"

"Only service ducts."

"Is that all?"

"Well, a long way down to vaults and foundations dating from the old time."

Before Engin had even stopped speaking, the Doctor was already gesturing to take him to see these vaults. They quickly followed suit, seeing clearly that their renegade friend had a hunch. Midway the Doctor suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and Rose literally ran into his back. He had kept their hands linked and all but dragged her along the corridors as he hastened along his way. Now he let go of her hand in order to place both of his on her shoulders.

"Rose, if the Master truly is down there, now would be the time to secure yourself in your rooms."

"Doctor, we've already discussed this. He's after you, not me. He only helped Goth to kill me so he might become my successor and destroy you."

"Weren't you going to announce his succession anyway, Madam President?", Spandrell asked surprised.

"Hell no," she told him rebelliously.

"All the same," the Doctor interrupted before she could elaborate, "the Master is an incredibly dangerous Time Lord and we cannot be sure that he doesn't want you dead for his own reasons. I'm not giving him another chance by leading you straight into his waiting Tissue Compression Eliminator."

Rose frowned stubbornly.

"Please, Rose, for my peace of mind if nothing else," he requested gently, leaning his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. It was preposterously easy to establish a telepathic connection and let a little bit of his very real worry slip through. He heard her gasp at the unexpected sensation and felt her reluctant agreement wash over from her side of the bond. He breathed a sigh of relief, but kept their physical and mental connection a moment longer. Their acquaintance was certainly a strange one. When they weren't flirting, they were fighting and they went from one to the other so fast, it gave him whiplash. Still, this momentary peace was almost too good to give up, so when he finally disentangled their minds and bodies, he did so with great reluctance and not before leaving a soft kiss on her forehead. He tried to ignore the sudden, sharp intake of breath and the flush that covered her face and neck as he pulled away. Spandrell had called four more guards to escort the Lady President back to her office and secure her there. They arrived just as the Doctor turned back around to the Castellan and Engin, who appeared very busy looking elsewhere. Once the President was safely surrounded by her guards, the Doctor continued on his way to the lowest level without daring to look back.

What they found was a number of bodies and a carcass that could only be the Master.

"Is he dead?", Spandrell asked.

"Yes."

"Chancellor is still alive," Engin informed them as he inspected the body laid out in what appeared to be the link to the Matrix.

"Not for long by the look of him."

"He must have taken the full shock."

The Doctor drew closer as it appeared that Goth still had something to say.

"So, Doctor, you beat us in the end. Protected the Wolf of Gallifrey..."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. It seemed like an unusual nickname, but if her earlier barking at the Chancellary Guard had been any indication, it was well-deserved. He was dimly aware of Engin and Spandrell exchanging a look with one another that he would have to inquire about later. It seemed like a missing puzzle piece in the mystery that Rose presented to him.

"Goth, why did you do it?" Her earlier admission of having no intention to recommend him as her successor seemed all the motive he really needed, but something about the Chancellor's emphasis on the President's fate didn't sit quite right with him.

"I wanted power, wanted to be president, but to serve Gallifrey. I wanted to be her savior," came the halting reply.

"Savior from what?", Spandrell interjected

"From the Wolf. The President. For Gallifrey. And for him... the Master, his plan..."

"What was his plan?", the Doctor asked.

"He wanted resources... He was dying, no more regenerations," Goth rasped back. "Promised to share all his knowledge."

"What resources, Goth? What did he ask specifically?"

"The Wolf, the big bad wolf."

"Yes, you planned to kill her so you could take her place and give the Master what?", the Doctor insisted, but Goth shook his head.

"Bad Wolf," he repeated.

"Goth, Goth, what was his plan? What did he want once you were president?"

"Couldn't fight his mental dominance, did everything he asked... Sorry now," the man rasped out with his last strength. The Doctor tried to redirect his attention, but it was too late. He would never answer them now.

"It's no use now, Doctor," Engin told him.

"No answer to a straight question. Typical politician," he grumbled. The man was dead, but even though the Doctor believed his remorse to have been genuine, fear and anger still coiled tight in his stomach. Something remained unsettled. Even with the Master's death, something told him the plot was still in motion and it endangered Gallifrey herself. The Castellan and Engin finally pulled him away and back to the upper levels, where they met with Lord Borusa. The Castellan quickly explained the entire situation, including Goth's betrayal, but Borusa insisted on falsifying the record to make the man look like a hero. The Doctor snorted, derided the plan – after everything he'd gone through at the man's hand that, at least, was his right.

"Of course, Doctor, the charge against you will be dropped-"

"How kind," he deadpanned.

"-conditional on your immediate departure from Gallifrey."

"Somehow Cardinal I don't want to stay-"

"Good."

"-but I will see Rose before I go."

"Rose?"

"Ah, the Lady President, my lord. Her name means Rose in Earth English," Spandrell informed the Cardinal quietly.

Something unidentifiable passed over the Cardinal's face then, before he sharply returned his attention to the Doctor.

"You've gotten even more insolent, Doctor. You will address the Lady President will all the respect her position demands."

"With respect, Lord Borusa, the lady doesn't seem to mind," the Doctor argued back with a grin.

Borusa's face looked like he'd bitten into a particularly sour lemon, but he discontinued this conversation in favor of other, more pressing issues.

"I believe, Doctor, you know something of the Master's past."

"We've bumped into each other from time to time."

"Then before you leave, you can assist Coordinator Engin to compile a new bio record of him. It doesn't have to be entirely accurate."

"Like Time Lord history," the Doctor quipped, but drew past the Cardinal. When questioned where he was going, he reminded them of his intention to see the President. Borusa followed him in a huff, reminding him that people did not just burst into the President's office, while the Doctor again confidently suggested that she wouldn't mind. The argument went back and forth until they arrived at the office doors to find the guards on the ground and the door ajar. At that point, both Borusa and the Doctor panicked and stormed into the office. A few pieces of furniture had been overturned, her shoes and various documents were strewn all across the floor.

"Well, she certainly put up a fight."

Borusa's glare could have melted Dalekanium as it fixated on his old student.

"This is no time for your flippant quips, Doctor. The President has been forcibly taken from her office. She is, no doubt, in mortal peril. We must find her!"

"But this doesn't make any sense!", the Doctor let out in a frustrated growl. "Why would he take her?"

"He?", the Castellan interjected.

"The Master," the Doctor replied absentmindedly, walking up an down the office space trying to make sense of it.

"But the Master is dead," Engin reminded him.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, it's the only possibility. What's the likelihood of two fiends trying to eliminate her on the same day. It's preposterous; it has to be the Master. He's evil, cunning and resourceful and the more I think about it, the less I believe that he'd just meekly accept the end of his regeneration cycle. No, he'd have a plan. That's why he came here, but what's the plan?"

"After the 12th regeneration there is no plan that will change his fate," Engin told him.

"And yet... Goth said that he wanted resources – what for if not to prolong his life. A new regeneration cycle, a new body altogether in which to transfer his consciousness. Why not the President's? But then why try to kill her, no, no, it doesn't add up."

"...Doctor," Spandrell spoke up slowly. "When you asked Goth what resources the Master wanted, he kept repeating the reference to the President."

"Yes, something about a wolf. Why?"

"What if the resource he wanted was the President," Spandrell suggested. "There was a rumor about the President's initia-"

"That's enough, Castellan," Borusa interrupted icily.

"No, I'd very much like to hear this."

"There is no need to drag petty, old hogwash into-"

"Rose's life might depend on it," the Doctor chastised him harshly. "And something tells me you're a lot more invested in her well-being than I gave you credit for. Why did you really not betray her trust when you spotted me in her fitting rooms? I heard you were her strongest supporter on the council – why?"

He was met only with stony silence and the Doctor turned back to Spandrell.

"The rumor was very vague, but it was suggested that something happened when she looked into the untempered schism. She looked into time and it looked into her and they... bonded somehow."

"As it does with every Time Lord."

"Not like this. There are stories of her eyes sparking with the golden hue of time eternal and... I admit I thought that's what I saw when she purged the guard's mind. Her eyes seemed to flash gold for just a moment."

Gold. Time. All that atron energy she needed to loosen the Master's grip on the boy's mind. No wonder his old enemy might want her. Whatever sparked her anomalous relationship to time energy, perhaps if he could gather enough of it and redirect it properly-

"-he could reverse the effect of time. Rejuvenate himself, maybe even de-generate. He might literally regain the time of his lives," the Doctor finished explaining. "Normally, the only place you'd find enough temporal energy would be in the heart of a Tardis, but opening that up would destroy him. If Rose truly has some kind of... of spark of that in her, not enough to hurt him, but enough to... to...to serve as a conductor... enough to prolong his lifespan – even for a little while to give him more time-"

"Conductor?", Borusa queried, alarmed.

"Yes, but he'd need energy. Raw time energy, but not the heart. Not the he- he'd need the schism again to draw energy from it."

"And Ar-, I mean the Lady President would be his... valve...", Borusa concluded the thought.

"She'd be burned up," Spandrell said with horror.

The men exchanged horrified looks, before sprinting back toward the hallway, intent on reaching the Untempered Schism before it was too late. At the entrance they were met with the guard that had been sent to manipulate Goth's body to make it look like he had died a hero. The Castellan stopped short went the youth handed him a needle, but the Doctor swiped it from his grip immediately. Gathering what moisture remained from the tip, he tried to determine what had been in it by scent alone. He had a very good idea, though, and told the other Time Lords of his suspicion. No one protested; his suspicions had been confirmed. The Master had used the hypodermic needle to fake his death and take the Lady President. The guard also reported that the blaster found with former Chancellor Goth had been tampered with to stun its victims.

"So that had been the Master's plan. He wanted to make it look like the President had been killed in order to abscond with her body," Engin suggested.

"But there would have been a search if the President's body disappeared."

"It wouldn't have been a priority given the chaos the presumed assassination would have raised, Castellan. And you would have been busy securing the Doctor's trial," the Doctor contradicted him. "Besides-"

"All of that is irrelevant now! We must find Arkytior!", Borusa interrupted him before he could launch into a lecture. He ignored the awkward silence that followed and rushed off. He heard the Castellan order the guard to get reinforcements and join them at the Schism, then heard the others follow him, though the silence continued and he could practically feel the Doctor's calculating gaze burn into the back of his head. It wouldn't be long now before his former student put the pieces of the puzzle together. For all his failings, Borusa had to admit that the Doctor was quite adept at solving mysteries. Clever, even. They had no time to waste on such trivial matters now, though, and thankfully the Doctor seemed to agree for he kept silent and refocused himself. The others followed his example.

They were about to take a turn for the stairs when the renegade ordered them all into the lift. Once inside he used his sonic screwdriver to override the safety mechanism that kept the speed of the lift at a pleasant, steady mark. They all felt a rush as they descended at top speed down the shaft. Borusa allowed himself a glance at his former student's face. It looked closed off and worried, but his eyes sparked with resolve. The Doctor must have felt the weight of his gaze, because he looked up into the other man's eyes. He kept the sonic pressed against the control panel of the lift, but his focus was clearly on his instructor. He was taking in Borusa's stiff stance, the tension in his shoulders and on his face, the worried frown that creased his brow. The Doctor looked at him for a long moment until he could swear he could feel Borusa's double heartbeat race away inside his own chest. He was worried, more worried than even his earlier outburst had led on, but he was a Time Lord, so he buried the sentiment deep inside himself and masked whatever dared shine through as best as he could. It only strengthened the Doctor's suspicion, but now was not the time to confront the Cardinal's secrets, for they shared that desperate worry for the Time Lady's safety and well-being.

The main administrative structure of the Citadel was located at the center of the Time Lord capitol, while the Schism was kept outside and completely separate from the city. The High Council had always feared that the temptation might be too great to look into it again and as a single glance might turn someone mad, they feared what repeated direct exposure might do. Thus, by Gallifreyan law, only initiates were allowed to approach the Untempered Schism and it was kept under constant guard in the Gallifreyan desert to dissuade anyone from trying to reach it. The Castellan had tried to reach the guard on the way down, but had received no response, so the Time Lords hastened to the Doctor's Tardis, which had been removed to the storage area below. The Doctor all but shouted for joy when he finally laid eyes on her again, fumbling with the key as he hastily unlocked the door and ushered everyone inside. Without requiring any instruction, he, Engin, Spandrell, Borusa and the two guards that had come with them went to work to fly the ship together. Any other day the Doctor might have protested the liberty which they were taking with her, but now his worry overrode his frustration. Never had he been so glad to hear her magnificent grinding sound as she materialized at their intended location.

At least he hoped it was at their intended location.

But the Doctor trusted his ship, so without waiting to check, he flew out the doors before the sound had completely faded. The scene he found laid out before him both horrified and fascinated him. Not to far from him were the bodies of the two Chancellary Guards who had been left to protect the Schism. They had been miniaturized like the camera man. He couldn't make out the Master's Tardis, but, given that her chameleon circuit worked, he wasn't too surprised. They could scan for it with the help of his own Tardis later. His ship had materialized behind the Master, who was standing before a motionless Rose. Her seemingly lifeless body was floating in the air, engulfed in the golden aura of a million million shimmering lights that burst forth from the Untempered Schism. The lights surrounded her and united with her, whipping the sandy ground into a small storm around herself and the Master. The mad renegade had one hand wrapped around her wrist to siphon off what energy he needed into his own cells. Before the Doctor's eyes his skeletal hand, decomposing flesh hanging off of it in bits and pieces, grew new, healthy pink flesh and pale skin. The wind ripped off his hood so that the Doctor and the other men could watch his face reconstitute itself from the rotten corpse it had been. Before their very eyes they could watch the Master grow younger until the Doctor recognized his angular face and salt-and-pepper goatee, but the process was not finished. Soon the gray disappeared from his hair and beard and his features softened with youth.

It was Borusa who first rushed the Master through the sandstorm. Before he could knock the other man off balance, the madman let go of Rose long enough to use the Cardinal's momentum against him, throwing him to the ground. Even considering the valiant effort, Borusa had a predilection for older bodies and so felt the impact of the ground rather hard. The Doctor was jolted out of his idleness by Borusa's intervention. So were the others apparently, because the guards started shooting the Master. He heard the Castellan shift to interfere, shouting at them for endangering the Lady President, so the Doctor advanced on his old enemy. He struggled to subdue the Master now that he had regained his strength. A blow to the gut nearly knocked the wind out of the Doctor, but he managed to use the Master's next attack to throw him over his shoulder. A sudden spark of gold along his skin distracted him; he must have absorbed some of the energy himself through contact with the Master. He turned to face Rose, who was still suspended in mid-air. He could feel the heat radiating off of her as the vortex continued to engulf her. He could feel the temperature increasing. Soon it would melt the flesh off of her bones if the vortex itself didn't disintegrate her first. He had to wake her.

"Rose," he called to her, approaching. "Rose, can you hear me?! The vortex will burn you, you hav-"

He was interrupted by the Master pulling him away from the President and throwing him into the dirt. Before he could blink, the Doctor found his old enemy on top of him. The Master punched him in the face once, twice, then his newly strong, youthful hands closed around his throat. The Doctor was disoriented and his respiratory bypass wouldn't kick in. Perhaps his time in the Matrix had taken more out of him than he'd expected. His arms flailed as his hands tried to find purchase to throw his enemy off. It was one of the guards who ultimately freed him, pulling the Master off him, sending both rolling over the ground, but the Master took out his Eliminator and the next thing they heard was an agonized scream as the poor guy was shrunk to death. The Doctor jumped to his feet, swaying slightly. A few feet away he noticed Borusa had also gotten to his feet. The Castellan and the remaining guard pointed their blasters at the mad Time Lord, while Engin seemed to study Rose's predicament, perhaps to find a way to undo it. The Master was waving his Eliminator between them, mostly between the Doctor himself and Cardinal Borusa – the person he considered most dangerous and the man who held the highest rank of office except for... He suddenly turned the Eliminator toward the President and everything froze.

"Game over, Doctor!", the Master gloated.

"You will kill her anyway if you continue to expose her to the vortex," the Doctor replied with apparent calm as he shuffled closer.

"Not at all, Doctor. I'm willing to let you rescue her once she had restored some of my regenerations and we both know you can't pass up the chance to be the dashing hero! We both know you won't risk the President's life after you got so cozy together in your mind..." He kept inching backward, closer to Rose.

Borusa's attention snapped to him. Unfortunately, the Master caught this.

"Oh, do I sense parental disapproval, Cardinal?! Ha ha! I have defeated you at last, Doctor!", the Master laughed as he finally reached Rose again. He grasped blindly onto her hand and the rejuvenation process resumed. The Doctor watched him age backward from a middle-aged man to a young adult while desperately trying to think of a solution. _Think, think_ , he told himself, then something the Master had said came to him. They had gotten cozy in his mind. Perhaps it was time reverse their positions. He glanced at Rose's unconscious form. Coaxing a dormant mind to the surface was easy enough, relatively speaking, but the presence of so much vortex energy made it incredibly risky. Still, she had assisted him without question in his hour of need, even endangering herself to do so. The least he could do was return the courtesy.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. It wasn't the same without the physical link, but their minds had tangled already, so he should be able to trace the remnants of that bond back to her own mind. He just had to find- a spark of gold behind his eyelids caught his mind's eye. He carefully probed it, only to find it visualizing as a tender golden thread. He followed it into a raging inferno. A storm of gold howled inside her mind, nearly ripping his mental projection to shreds within seconds of contact. It was wild and angry, the uncontrolled energy merging with her mental turmoil as she relived the last few moments before the Master knocked her out. An intense struggle in her office, knocking over lamps and furniture as she was dragged and shoved and finally injected with something. The panic made the storm savage and the raging vortex inside her head increased her panic exponentially, her mind initially perceiving him as her aggressor.

"Rose!", he called. "Rose, it's me! Please, it me, the Doctor!"

The storm didn't abate in the slightest, so he called again.

"Rose!" This time he accompanied his calling with a barrage of his own memories and emotions. His time in the Matrix appeared in her head. His fear, his pain, his exhaustion, but also his cunning, his determination and the comfort he took in her presence. He showed her his moment of panic while he was held under water by Goth and her telepathic signature disappeared. Then his relief and even joy at sensing her again minutes later, knowing that nothing had happened to her. He shared his trepidation with her at hearing of her origin, his shame when she pointed out his own prejudice, the warm he felt when she had forgiven him. Finally, he shared his shock at discovering she was his granddaughter's namesake. All around him the howling slowly quietened and the storm calmed to reveal a field of the golden flowers for which both Rose and his precious granddaughter were name. She wasn't difficult to spot in her white robes, but he approached her carefully. Her eyes were closed when he knelt over her.

"Rose?", he inquired quietly.

"Hmm..." Her voice was soft, sleepy. She was waking only now from the prison of her own mind.

"You have to open your eyes. We have to stop the Master."

Her yes did open then. Unfocused at first, they cleared quickly. He offered her a hand to help her up. When he pulled her from the flower bed, she was lighter than he had imagined. They both nearly stumbled as her body came rushing to an upright position. One of her hands gripped his shirt, the other twisted in his scarf as she tied to catch herself. Once he had stabilized them, he looked down into her youthful face. There was something different about it now that she was awake and aware. Something predatory. Her nails felt like the pinpricks of claws against his skin even through the protective layer of his clothes.

"I'm so sorry, Doctor," she said softly. He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but a hand on his cheek shushed him.

When she looked back up at him her eyes burned gold.

He awoke from his trance with a start. For a moment he didn't know where he was, or how much time had past. Finally, his senses came back to him completely just as the Master's features were beginning to change – to a previous face no doubt. Everyone else's gaze was fixated beyond the madman though, so the Doctor followed their line of sight. Rose was still engulfed by the vortex spilling forth from the Untempered Schism, but now she was upright and on the ground, her eyes glowing bright gold with the power of time. The Doctor looked around him at the faces of his companions; bafflement, fear and horror were equally etched in all of them, but Borusa's face also finally showed all his worry and sorrow at his daughter's fate. Even the Master seemed to realize something was wrong, because he turned around to face Rose directly. When he saw her looming over him, he shrieked alarmed and tried to snatch his hand from her in fright, but her grip kept him steadfast were he was. He merely managed to lose his footing and stumble to the ground.

"Bad Wolf," the Doctor murmured, remembering Goth's dying words. Rose's eyes snapped to his shocked form as if reacting to the moniker. The smile that appeared on her face was all teeth.

"Wha-What are you?", the Master asked, looking up at her.

"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself." She turned to the Schism. The continuous flow of energy stopped. "I take the words and I send them back through time and space to lead to this moment."

An image solidified in the Schism. Instead of an amalgam of history, past, present and future, they now saw a single moment. The moment Lady Arkytior of House Oakdown first looked into the Untempered Schism as an eight-year old girl. They saw her frightened face, dark brown eyes wide with surprise and terror. They watched as a few sparks of gold flew from Rose's hand into the Schism and came to brighten the little girl's eyes, making them burn for just a moment. Howling ringed across the desert from where the little girl bonded with the Time Vortex. As the golden storm in her eyes abated, the girl's skin began to glow instead until she looked like she erupted into flames. The Doctor watched as one brown-haired little girl faded from existence. _So young to lose a life_ , he thought. She collapsed to the ground and the Schism would only show them one more glance at her face, soft and angular all at once and framed in long golden curls. The girl's eyes were closed as the image faded, but the Doctor knew they had the color of whiskey and time.

"But... how?", the Master questioned.

"I looked into the Time Vortex and the Time Vortex looked into me. I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be."

"Twice," the Doctor spoke up. "You looked into the Time Vortex _again_. Rose, no one's meant to see that."

"I want Gallifrey safe, Doctor. Protected from the false god." She looked at the Master then, such scorn and pity in her eyes that it frightened even him.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence. And I divide them-"

"No!", the Doctor called out just as she raised her hand to do just that. Rose hesitated and he thought he saw a flash of her whiskey-colored eyes in all the gold, but her voice remained cold, emotionless. She turned to regard him with indifference, though he could sense anger just underneath the surface. He had to tread carefully if he wanted all of them to come out of this unscathed. A Time Lady who absorbed the Time Vortex; now they knew what the Council had been instinctively afraid of. She was like a goddess, a vengeful goddess.

"You would defend him?", she questioned in a cool voice.

"I would defend you," he clarified, though he did not wish his one-time friend to be disintegrated either.

"Defend... me?" She sounded confused as if she didn't understand what he meant.

"Rose, do you remember what you told me when I scorned Oakdown House. You told me that your honorable house was not comprised only of psychopath and murderers, people who take pleasure in the suffering of others." He realized he was losing her interest and went on quickly. "If you do this, Rose, if you pass judgment on him like a goddess, you will lose yourself to him and to the vortex. It has been connected to you too long already, you have to let go."

"So many have died." The Doctor thought he heard a sliver of pain in there and grasped upon that piece of Rose. He glanced at Borusa, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Don't make it two more," the Cardinal pleaded. "The Doctor is right, daughter. What has this all been for if you become like him? We shall put him on trial and he will surely be locked away where he can harm no one ever again."

"Oh, I have plenty of material to add to an inquiry," the Doctor grinned more jovially than he truly felt. "I could talk about him for hours. My full deposition would probably take days."

"He won't get away, Madam President," Spandrell agreed, motioning the remaining guard to grab hold of the Master. The young man approached his President with trepidation. He breathed an audible sigh of relief when the Doctor joint him and the Lady President allowed him to grasp the Master's free arm and opposite shoulder in expectation of actually handcuffing him. The Doctor reached out to touch her hand and squeeze softly, persuading her to let the madman go. The swirl of gold in her eyes dimmed.

"My head-"

"Come here," the Doctor coaxed her.

"-is killing me."

"I think you need a Doctor."

The last of the golden energy receded with her laughter at the corny joke, which was short-lived because as soon as she was free of Bad Wolf she collapsed into his arms. He caught her her gently, settling them both on the ground when all the stress caught up with him as well. Her back rested against his right arm and knew, her head fell to the side onto his shoulder. She was conscious, which he counted as a win, but her eyes fell closed repeatedly from exhaustion. Still, he breathed a little easier now that it was over. Her tired smile made his hearts flutter. He started when his knuckles brushed against her cheek, not remembering having moved his hand. Her eyes flew open, her smile grew a little softer and a faint blush appeared on her cheeks. Her lips parted as if she intended to speak and his gaze fell on them for a split second. Before either of them could say anything more, Borusa knelt down next to them, a hand on Rose's cheek drawing her attention away. She beheld the Cardinal's face with a mixture of awe and shock, apparently not having been privy to the knowledge of her origins.

"So," her voice rasped softly, "you are my progenitor?"

The Doctor started at the impersonal term. He had not expected it from someone so full of vitality and rebellious spirit, but he had to admit that the revelation had been sudden. Perhaps it was anger shining through at all the opportunities the Cardinal had let pass by to tell her himself that colored her inquiry. He suddenly felt like an intruder and were he not so entangled with her, he might simply set her on the ground to wait for the medics – or hand her to Borusa, but he guessed she would not appreciate that.

"Yes, my Arkytior," the Cardinal answered her quietly. Now that the concern had passed, his voice was dispassionate again, any trace of what he might be feeling kept firmly under wraps.

"Why?", Rose asked him simply, though this branched into a myriad of questions in the Doctor's mind alone. He could not imagine what Borusa must have thought she was asking, but he could see the Cardinal's face close off. He rose to his full height and instructed Spandrell and the remaining guard that she should be taken back to the Citadel. A flash of anger for his friend passed through the Doctor at Borusa's quick dismissal, but when the guard came to help her up, the Doctor simply grunted. Even though he did not know how steady his steps were yet, he kept Rose firmly in his arms as he lifted them both of the ground. He told the guard to handle the body of his comrade instead and indicated that their reinforcements were finally arriving. They could see the ships float across the dunes a few hundred meters away. Meanwhile, he carried Rose slowly to the Tardis, asked the old girl to fly herself back, then through a maze of corridors to the infirmary. He gently set her down on the hospital bed and set the body scanner to analyze what, if anything, was wrong with her. While the scanner ran, he set up a saline IV just as a precaution. He noticed her looking away as he gently inserted the needle in her arm.

"I'm terribly frightened of the little buggers myself, too. Can barely look at what I'm doing, me," he joked with her, welcoming the small guffaw it caused. He secured the needle with some tape, just as the scanner beeped to indicate it had finished its work.

"So, what's the verdict, Doc?", she asked cheekily. He moved the monitor around so she could see the mass of swirling dots that it showed concentrated in her body. Too tired to analyze the picture she was presented with, Rose resorted to ask him. "What's that?"

"Atron energy. Your readings are off the charts. You must have absorbed several centuries' worth of time travel while the Master had rigged you up as his vortex valve."

"Am I alright?" She hadn't heard of atron energy ever causing problems – it was just background radiation, after all, not dangerous, just sort of there – but then she'd also never heard of someone having the entire Time Vortex run through their bloody minds before.

"Hmm... oh, yeah, it says here you're a bit dehydrated and your stress levels have skyrocketed – frankly, I'm surprised you haven't regenerated for heart attacks yet-"

"Let's not jinx it, please," she muttered at him and he had the decency to look guilty, but the grin that formed on his face destroyed the image again. She couldn't help but return it, though.

"Well, basically you need lots of rest and water. The IV will take care of the latter, so all you have to do is sleep, then you should feel better tomorrow."

"Okay," she hummed, turning on her side so as not to disturb the IV.

"What are you doing?"

"Sleeping?"

"Oh, not here, I should think. Much too uncomfortable." He placed the saline bag in her hands when she turned onto her back again to look at him. Then he picked her up once more to carry her out of the infirmary. He only made it a couple of steps into the hallway before he swayed a little again. The exhaustion was certainly catching up with him as well. He had wanted to get her under the scanner so desperately that his body had somehow found the strength, but now he was definitely running on empty. He turned to the closest door he could find and hoped to Rassilon it was a guest room. Rose gasped when he opened it and he had to stand dumbly in the door for a moment to take it in himself. It wasn't opulent exactly, but the room was large and comfy-looking. There was a vanity in one corner and a sitting area with plush chairs for three and a table for tea opposite the bed. The bed itself had four twisting posts and was covered in soft-looking rust-colored sheets and drapery. Beside it stood a pole on which to hang the IV. He almost missed it, because the lights were dimmed to give the room as cozy atmosphere.

The Doctor shook his head; the old girl had outdone herself this time. He placed Rose carefully onto the bed and adjusted the sheets to she could sleep. Then he secured the saline bag to the pole so it could run through and told her he would be by with another in a couple of hours. He would try not to wake her. He turned to leave, but her hand on his arm stopped it. When he looked down at her again, she seemed surprisingly vulnerable. There was a question in her eyes, but when she spoke to him softly, it remained silent.

"Thank you, Doctor. For everything."

He nodded mutely, again about to leave when instead he sat down next to her.

"I think he was trying to protect you," he whispered carefully, not sure how she would react. "Borusa, I mean. When he asked you to resign... I overhead two Time Lords talking about how the Council had been discussing taking, and I quote 'more drastic actions'."

"...Forcibly deposing me would have made me an outcast," she admitted. "But why-"

"That I can't answer," he told her even after she interrupted herself. He himself wondered why Borusa had never told her. Clearly Rose had followed her mother into Oakdown House, but why Borusa would allow that or keep the secret even as he worked with her as Cardinal he couldn't fathom. It was clearly not from lack of interest in his daughter, although perhaps from considering that interest misplaced and sentimental and therefore unworthy of him. The Doctor looked at Rose's strained, tired face as she, too, pondered the events and chose not to share his thoughts with her at this time.

 _At this time_ , he wondered. As if he expected there to be a later date at which he might talk to her more frankly, but she would disappear back into the confines of the Citadel to resign and he would disappear into time and space. He doubted they would see each other again, certainly not for a long time. Not unless...

"My own fault, I suppose," Rose sighed. "I pushed them into those reforms. Breaking with Time Lord tradition and authorizing the CIA to intervene if the potential loss of life is massive; no wonder they wanted rid of me."

She scoffed.

"Not that the CIA will actually do much with their new authority..."

"You must have known that when you pushed the reform," the Doctor guessed. He felt the burn of his shame again at how he had treated her for coming from Oakdown, but now it was mellowed with delight at seeing her work herself into such frustration over the lives of planets and people she had never met. She reminded him of himself just before he up and left Gallifrey; angered and disillusioned. Pushing for reform on the council, but hitting nothing but walls of Time Lord apathy. Her eyes were so fresh, no different than all the young humans he had met despite her extensive education. She had never left Gallifrey, never set foot on another planet, never seen another sky or experienced another culture and he could see the spark in her eyes that told him she would love it.

"One step at a time. I thought... I thought I had more time," she told him wistfully. " I wanted more. I wanted to much more for Gallifrey. Now I doubt they'll ever let me work in an administrative position again. They'll keep me far away from anything important. I won't be able to change anything ever again."

"Change can be affected anywhere in the universe."

Their eyes locked.

 **The End**

 **A/N:** Open ending, not all loose ends neatly tied up. Bit like life. Wow, this must be the longest single chapter (story) I have ever written. Hope you liked it, despite the AU setting.


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